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Christian  Science 


THE  FAITH  AND  ITS  FOUNDER 


BY     / 

LYMAN  P.  POWELL 

Rector  of  St.  John's  Church,  Northampton,  Massachusetts 


G.   P.   PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  AND   LONDON 

Zbc  Tknicfeerbochcr  press 
1907 


Copyright,  1907 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Ube  IRnicfterbocftcr  press,  -ftew  Jgorft 


PREFACE 

CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE  has  long  en- 
gaged my  interest.  For  years  I  dis- 
couraged none  who  sought  its  heahng 
ministry.  The  undiscriminating  censure  visited 
upon  it  in  apparent  ignorance  or  prejudice 
made  no  impression  on  me.  The  desire  Chris- 
tian Scientists  were  constantly  expressing  to 
be  judged  by  their  fruits  seemed  to  me  to  be 
both  Christian  and  scientific. 

A  year  or  two  ago,  however,  closer  observa- 
tion and  more  serious  consideration  brought 
me  to  three  conclusions  which  appear  to  me 
unquestionably  true: 

1.  That  when  members  of  any  Christian 
church  turn  to  Christian  Science  healing  they 
usually  turn  away  from  historic  Christianity. 

2.  That  there  are  in  the  theory  of  Chris- 
tian Science  certain  structural  weaknesses 
which  may  easily  be  overlooked  by  people 
unschooled  in  philosophy,  theology,  or  science. 

3.  That  the  answers  of  the  accredited  ex- 
ponents  of   the   movement   to   the   criticisms 

iii 


IV 


Preface 


which  are  steadily  gaining  headway  satisfy 
none  save  Christian  Scientists  and  such  others 
as  read  carelessly  and  think  loosely. 

This  volume  grew  out  of  a  booklet  of 
mine  which  was  never  regularly  published,  but 
for  which  there  soon  came  to  be  a  large  demand 
from  all  parts  of  the  country.  It  was  at  the 
suggestion,  altogether  unexpected,  of  G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons  that  I  have  expanded  the 
monograph  into  a  book. 

My  purpose,  as  the  reader  will  discover,  has 
been  to  write  a  book  in  which  the  average  man 
who  is  outside  of  Christian  Science  can  find 
the  things  he  wants  to  know  about  its  theory 
and  practice.  If  to  my  readers  it  may  now 
and  then  appear  that  I  unduly  emphasise  the 
defects  of  the  system,  I  ask  them  to  observe 
that  the  good  in  Christianas cience„  is  the  good 
in  other  religions  and  therefore  requires  no 
special  emphasis,  while^  the  evil  is  distinctive 
and  needs  analysis  and  publicity  to  make  it 
evident. 

In  studying  the  theory  of  Christian  Science 
I  have  read  various  editions  of  Science  and 
Health,  covering  its  entire  development,  to- 
gether with  other  writings  of  INIrs.  Eddy,  and 
the  literature,  now  abundant,  both  in  explana- 
tion and  in  criticism  of  the  system.     To  read- 


Preface  v 

ing  I  have  added  interviews  and  correspond- 
ence with  representative  apologists  and  critics 
of  the  movement. 

In  considering  Mrs.  Eddy's  personal  his-, 
tory,  I  have  made  free  use  of  Georgine  Mil- 
mine's  articles  in  McClure's.  I  have  taken 
the  pains,  however,  in  each  instance  to  verify 
her  statements  by  correspondence  or  by  inter- 
views with  those  concerned.  For  this  purpose 
alone  I  have  travelled  more  than  twenty-five 
hundred  miles  and  am  glad  to  be  able  to  testify 
to  the  singular  accuracy  of  the  articles  and 
the  thoroughness  with  which  they  have  been 
prepared. 

In  the  chance  that  there  might  be  witnesses 
whom  Georgine  Milmine  overlooked  to  con- 
tradict the  witnesses  she  introduces  in  the  open 
court  of  a  great  magazine,  I  took  counsel  with 
the  Committee  on  Publication  of  the  Christian 
Science  organisation.  He  referred  me  to  the 
author  of  the  Human  Life  articles  on  the  same 
subject,  but  I  was  no  more  fortunate  with  her 
than  with  the  Committee.  I  am,  therefore, 
satisfied,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  be,  that  there 
is  no  significant  evidence  to  offset  the  evidence 
presented  in  McClure's, 

To  name  all  who  have  in  one  way  or  another 
helped  me  in  my  work  would  be  impossible. 


VI 


Preface 


But  I  must  at  least  mention  the  following  to 
whom  I  am  especially  indebted:  Mr.  Alfred 
Farlow,  JNIrs.  Benjamin  Welles,  Mr.  George 
A.  Quimby,  ]\Ir.  F.  W.  Peabody,  Professor 
R.  W.  Micou,  Rev.  Dr.  C.  E.  Holmes,  Rev. 
Dr.  A.  E.  Dunning,  Mr.  George  Perry  Mor- 
ris, JNIr.  Horatio  W.  Dresser,  Dr.  A.  jNI. 
Gushing,  JNIr.  Livingston  Wright,  Rev.  John 
Snyder,  Rev.  Wm.  L.  Chaffin,  Mr.  Robert  K. 
Shaw,  Rev.  Dr.  J.  M,  Buckley,  Rev.  Dr. 
S.  A.  Eliot,  Rev.  Dr.  E.  H.  Delk,  Mr. 
Richard  Kennedy,  Mr.  Daniel  H.  Spofford, 
Mrs.  Sarah  G.  Crosby,  Mrs.  Julia  Russell 
Walcott,  Mr.  H.  T.  Wentworth,  JNIrs.  Joseph 
French  Johnson,  Mrs.  S.  A.  K.  Robinson, 
Miss  Florence  Ben-Oliel,  Mr.  Henry  B. 
Hinckley,  Dr.  John  B.  Huber,  Dr.  John 
S.  Hitchcock,  Dr.  Elmer  H.  Copeland,  and 
the  librarians  of  Northampton,  Springfield, 
and  Worcester,  Massachusetts. 

To  my  wife,  Gertrude  Wilson  Powell,  I  am 
under  the  deepest  obligation  for  many  aids 
which  she  alone  could  give.  To  the  editorial 
skill  of  my  nephew,  Harold  Ayres  Powell,  I 
owe  much  for  a  searching  criticism  of  the 
manuscript.  To  Dr.  Talcott  Williams  I  am 
grateful,  as  often  in  the  past,  for  the  use  of  his 
comprehensive  collection  of  magazine  articles 


Preface  vii 

and  newspaper  clippings  which  cover  practi- 
cally every  subject  of  human  interest,  and  can 
nowhere  be  duplicated. 

Christian  Scientists  will  say  as  usual  that  the 
truths  of  Christian  Science  are  self-authenti- 
cating, and  that  another  critic  has,  in  under- 
taking to  set  forth  the  case,  missed  the  essential 
point.  But  others  will,  I  trust,  believe  that 
I  have  brought  to  one  of  the  most  elusive 
problems  of  the  time  a  truth-seeking  spirit, 
and  that  whether  all  my  conclusions  stand  or 
not,  the  variety  of  quotation  from  Christian 
Science  writings  and  the  definiteness  and  com- 
prehensiveness of  the  facts  presented  will  con- 
vince people  that  it  is  perilous  to  commit 
themselves  to  this  crude  faith,  which  is  repudi- 
ated with  indignation  by  historic  Christianity 
and  with  contempt  by  science,  without  a  clearer 
understanding  than  is  common  of  its  insecure 
foundations  and  its  inevitable  implications. 


L.  P.  P. 


St.  John's  Rectory, 
Northampton,  Mass. 
August  20,  1907. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

PAGES 

CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE    AND  HISTORIC  CHRISTIANITY 

A  Strained  Relationship — The  Cause — Aim  of  Chris- 
tian Science — Its  Criticism  of  the  Churches — Mrs.  Eddy's 
Purpose — Conscientious  Proselyting — The  Virtues  of  the 
Scientists  —  Weakness  of  Christian  Churches  —  The 
Danger  Point 1-11 

CHAPTER  II 

SCIENCE  AND  HEALTH 

Source  of  its  Authority  —  Takes  Precedence  of  the 
Bible — Exorbitant  Selling  Price — Its  Healing  Power — 
Relationship  to  New  Thought  Literature — Faults  of  Style 
— Value  as  a  Commentary  on  the  Bible — Fantastic 
Exegesis — Element  of  Peril — How  it  Differs  from  the 
Bible— The  House  upon  the  Sand 12-27 

CHAPTER  III 

THE   SOURCE   OF   ITS    IDEAS 

Modern  Claim  of  their  Originality — The  Conflict  with 
the  Author's  Earlier  Words — The  Quimby  Panegyrics — 
Teaching  Quimby  ism  —  Cooling  Gratitude  —  Absolute 
Disavowals — Mesmeric  Explanations — Crux  of  the  Sit- 
uation— 1862  versus  1888 — Quimby's  Scrap-book — Dr. 
Evans's  Testimony — Incapacity  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  Modern 
Witnesses— The  Deadly  Parallel 28-49 


X  Contents 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  FOUNDER  OP  THE  FAITH 

The  World  when  she  was  Born — Childhood — Environ- 
ment and  Education — First  Marriage  in  1843 — Widow- 
hood and  Invalidism — Second  Marriage  in  1853 — Visit  in 
1862  to  Quimby  —  His  Healing  System — Mrs.  Eddy's 
Great  Mistake — The  "  Final  Revelation"  in  1866 — Sepa- 
ration from  her  Second  Husband  and  Divorce — Profes- 
sional Visiting — Partnership  in  Lynn  with  Richard 
Kennedy  in  1870 — Established  as  a  Healer — Relationship 
with  D.  H.  Spofford— The  Docile  Mr.  Eddy— Third  Mar- 
riage— Christian  Science  Organised  in  1875 — Removed 
in  1881  to  Boston — Court  and  Cabinet — College  and 
Church — To  Concord  in  1889 — Christian  Science  To-day 
— An  Astonishing  Autocrat — The  Manual — The  Mod- 
era  Mona  Lisa — Her  Virtues  and  her  Faults.     .        .         50-107 

CHAPTER  V 

THE  PHILOSOPHY 

A  Phase  of  Idealism — Mrs.  Eddy  Makes  a  Revelation 
of  it — The  Battle  Cry  of  Christian  Science — The  Ques- 
tion of  Reality — Christian  Science  neither  Christian 
nor  Scientitic — The  Practical  Objection  —  Difficulties 
of  Apologists — Soul  Senses — Mrs.  Eddy's  Isolation — 
An  Unanswerable  Criticism — No  Room  for  Evolution 
— A  Grave  Indictment  —  Timely  Illustrations  of  its 
Philosophical  Anarchy 108-184 

CHAPTER  VI 

THE  RELIGION  AND  THEOLOGY 

God  All-in-all — Principle  not  Personality  —  From 
Pantheism  into  Dualism  —  The  Trinity  —  Christian 
Science  is  the  Holy  Spirit — The  Incarnation  an  Exag- 
gerated Nestorianism — Deifying  Mrs.  Eddy — Prayer 
Declaration  not  Petition — Abandoning  the  Sacraments 
— Substitution  of  a  Breakfast  for  the  Lord's  Supper — 
Evil  no  Real  Existence — The  Absurd  Obsession  of  Ani- 
mal Magnetism 135-168 


Contents  xl 


CHAPTER  vn 

CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE  HEALING 

The  Supreme  Test  of  Christian  Science — Mrs.  Eddy's 
Claim  that  Christian  Science  Cures  All  Diseases — Her 
Followers'  Attitude — Venturesome  Experiments — Con- 
cessions to  Public  Opinion — Inadequate  Diagnoses — All 
Tests  Declined  — Mrs.  Eddy's  Attack  upon  the  Doctors 
— Reply  of  Medicine  and  Surgery — Healing  by  Under- 
standing of  the  Christian  Science  Theory — Practical 
Illustrations —  Chemicalisation — Jesus'  Way —  Mental 
Healing  through  the  Centuries — Pseudo-Scientific  and 
True  Scientific  Mental  Healing — Principle  Common  to 
Both — The  PossibiUties  and  Limitations  of  Suggestion 
— Christian  Science  Admits  no  Limitations — Consequent 
Need  of  State  Regulation— The  Duty  to  the  Truth.       169-202 

CHAPTER  VIII 

MARRIAGE  AND  THE  FAMILY 

The  Gravest  Defect — Christian  Science  Ascetic — Mrs. 
Eddy's  Testimony  Prompted  by  her  Personal  Experience 
— Denies  the  Sacramental  Use  of  Matter —  Misinter- 
prets Jesus'  Words — Teaches  Possibility  of  Race  Perpet- 
uation without  Marriage — Some  Explanations  which 
do  not  Explain — Simultaneous  Contradictions  —  The 
Testimony  of  the  Manual  and  the  Lesson  Quarterly — 
Public  Opinion  Making  Ready  for  a  Final  Judgment 
— The  Alternative — Duty  of  the  Hour.        .        „        203-220 

Notes 221-252 

Index 253-261 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

This  bibliography  does  not  profess  to  be  complete.  It 
includes  in  fact  only  those  books  and  other  writings  which 
have  proved  useful  in  the  preparation  of  this  volume. 
The  current  literature  on  Christian  Science  is  too  abun- 
dant for  mention  of  more  than  the  most  significant  maga- 
zine articles.  The  arrangement  is  made  with  respect  to 
the  special  needs  of  those  who  may  desire  to  read  sys- 
tematically in  explanation,  in  commendation,  or  in  criti- 
cism of  the  movement. 

BOOKS  BY  MRS.  EDDY 

Science  and  Health  with  Key  to  the  Scriptures.    Boston, 
editions  of  1875,  1881,1883,   1888,   1898,   1905,   1906. 
Miscellaneous  Writings.     Boston,  1902. 
Retrospection  and  Introspection.     Boston,  1900. 
Pulpit  and  Press.     Boston,  1905. 
No  and  Yes.     Boston,  1906. 
Rudimental  Divine  Science.     Boston,  1906. 
Christian  Science  versus  Pantheism.     Boston,  1906. 
Unity  of  Good.     Boston,  1906. 
Christ   and   Christmas.     Boston,   1906. 
Church  Manual.     Boston,  1906. 

PAMPHLETS  BY  CHRISTIAN  SCIENTISTS 

Farlow,  Alfred.    A  Critic  Answered. 

Fluno,  F.  J.     Christian  Science;  A  Reasonable  and  Ra^ 

tional  View  of  all  Things. 
Hanna,  S.  J.     Christian  Science  History. 

Healing  through  Christian  Science. 

Christian  Science  and  Legislation. 


XIV  Bibliography 

Hering,  H.  S.     Christian  Science:  Humanity's  Helper. 
Kimball,  E.  A.     Christian  Science  and  Legislation. 
Norton,    Carol.     The    Christian    Science    Church:    Its 

Organisation  and  Polity. 
Robinson,  Henry.    A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Rev.  Mary 

Baker  G.  Eddy. 
Smith,  C.  P.     Christian  Science  and  Legislation. 

CURRENT   LITERATURE   FAVOURABLE   TO 
CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

Beman,  S.  S.,  in  The  World  To-day,  June,  1907. 
Brisbane,  Arthur,  in  The  Cosmopolitan,  August,  1907. 
BuRNHAM,  Clara  Louise,  in  The  World  To-day,  February, 

1907. 
DuNMORE,  Earl  of,  in  The  Cosmopolitan,  March,  1907. 
Eddy,  Mrs.,  in  The  Independent,  Nov.  22,  1906. 
EwiNG,   Wm.   G.,   in   Success,   June,   1907. 
Farlow,  Alfred,  in  Government,  May,  1907. 
Flower,  B.  O.,  in  The  Arena,  January,  1907. 
Johnston,  W.  A.,  in  The  Broadway  Magazine,  May,  1907. 
Kimball,  E.  A.,  in  The  Cosmopolitan,  May,  1907. 
Klein,  Charles,  in  The  Cosmopolitan,  January,  1907. 

in    The   Arena,    May,   1907. 

McCracken,  W.  D.,  in  The  Arena,  May,  1907. 
Mattox,  W.  S.,  in  The  American  Queen,  May,  1907. 
MiMS,  Sue  H.,  in  Success,  May,  1907. 
MosLEY,  J.  R.,  in  The  Cosmopolitan,  July,  1907. 

1907. 
4.  Wilbur,  Sibyl,  in  Human  Life,  serial  beginning  January, 

1907. 
Willis,  John  B.,  in  The  Arena,  July. 
Yates,  Katherine  M.,  in   The  Ainerican  Queen,  March. 
The  list  of  daily  papers  will  not  be  given. 

BOOKS  OF  CRITICISM  OR  APPRAISAL 

V-  Buckley,   J.    M. ,    Christian   Science    and   Other   Super- 
stitions.    New  York,  1902. 


Bibliography  xv 

BURRELL,  J.  D.,  A  New  Appraisal  of  Christian  Science. 
New  York,  1906. 

Casson,  H.  N.,  The  Crime  of  Credulity.     New  York,  1901. 

Clark,  Gordon,  The  Church  of  Saint  Bunco.     New  York, 
1901. 
^  Clemens,  S.  L.    (Mark  Twain),  Christian  Science.    New 
York,  1907. 

CoE,  George  A.,  The  Spiritual  Life,  Ch.  IV.  New  York, 
1900. 

CusHMAN,  H.  E.,  The  Truth  in  Christian  Science,  Bos- 
ton, 1902. 

Dresser,  A.  G.,  The  Philosophy  of  P.  P,  Quimby.  Bos- 
ton, 1895. 

Dresser,  H.  W.,  Health  and  the  Inner  Life.  New  York, 
1906. 

,   Methods   and   Problems   of   Spiritual   Healing. 

New  York,  1899. 

Dresser,  Julius  A.,  The  True  History  of  Mental  Science. 
New  York,   1899. 

Farnsworth,  Edward  C,  in  The  Arena,  July. 

GODDARD,  H.  H.,  The  Effects  of  Mind  on  Body,  as  Evi- 
denced by  Faith  Cures.  American  Journal  of  Psy- 
chology, volume  X,  1899. 

Hutchinson,  Oliver  W.,  Christian  Science.    Leominster, 

Mass.,  1906. 
James,  William,  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience, 

Chs.  IV  and  V,  New  York,  1902. 
Micou,   R.  W.,  Outline  Notes  on  Fundamental  Theology 

and  Christian  Apologetics.     Alexandria,  Va.,  1902. 
Muldoon,  W.   H.,  Christian  Science  Claims   Unscientific 

and    Un-Christiav       Brooklyn    Eagle    Library,     51. 

March,   1901. 
Newton,  R.  Heber,  Christian  Science.    New  York,  1898. 
OUGHTON,  C.  M.,  Crazes,  Credulities,  and  Christian  Sci- 
ence, Chicago,  1901. 
Parmelee,  Mary  Platt,  Christian  Science.    New  York, 

1904. 
Patterson,  C.  B.,  The  Will  to  be  Well.    New  York,  1907. 


xvi  Bibliography 

Peabody,    F.    W.,    Complete    Exposure    of    Eddyism    or 

Christian  Science.     Boston,  1907. 
Powell,  L.  P.,  The  Anarchy  of  Christian  Science.  North- 
ampton, Mass.,  1906. 
Searchlights  on  Christian  Science.     New  York,  1899. 
Shinn,  G.  W.,  Some  Modern  Substitutes  for  Christianity. 

New  York,  1896. 
Snyder,   John,   A    Little   Journey   iji   Christian   Science. 

Boston,  1907. 
Sturge,   M.   Carta,    The    Truth   and  Error   of   Christian 

Science.     New  York,  1903. 
Wood,    Henry,    The    New    Thought    Simplified.     Boston, 

1903. 
Wright,   Livingston,   How   Rev.   Wiggin   Rewrote   Mrs. 

Eddy's  Book.     Reprinted  from  the  New  York  World, 

1906. 

OTHER  WRITINGS   USED   OR  CITED 

Barker,  Lewellys  F.,  The  Nervous  System.     New  York, 

1899. 
Bernheim,  Le  Dr.,  De  la  Suggestion.     Paris,  1888. 
Bramwell,  J.   Milne,  Hypnotism,  its  History,  Practice, 

and  Theory.     London,  1903. 
Campbell,  R.  J.,  The  New  Theology.     New  York,  1907. 
Case,   C.    D.,    The   Masculine   in   Religion.     Philadelphia, 

1907. 
Dresser,  H.  W.,  The  Facts  of  the  Case.     The  Arena,  May, 

1899. 
Dubois,   Paul,   The  Psychic   Treatment  of  Nervous  Dis- 
orders.    New  York,  1906. 
,The  Influence  of  the  Mind  on  the  Body.     New 

York,  1906. 
Evans,  W.  F.,  Mental  Medicine.     Boston,  1872  and  1874. 
Farrar,  F.  W.,  The  Bible:  Its  Meaning  and  Supremacy. 

New   York,   1897. 
Frothingham,  O.  B.,  Transcendentalism  in  New  England. 

New  York,  1876. 
Hopkins,  H.  R.,  The  Prognosis  in  Eddyism,  in  American 

Medical  Quarterly,   January,   1900. 


Bibliography  xvii 

Hudson,  T.  J.,  The  Laiv  of  Mental  Medicine. 

Huxley,  T.   H.,   on   The  Miraculous,   in   The   Nineteenth 

Century,  March,  1899.     Chicago,  1903. 
Keen,  W.  W.,  Surgery,  in  The  Progress  of  the  Century. 

New  York,  1901. 
Lane-Poole,   Stanley,  The  Speeches  and  Table-Talk  of 

the  Prophet  Mohammed.     London,  1882. 
Leonard,  W.  J.,  Warren  Felt  Evans,  in  Practical  Ideals, 

1905-6. 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  The  Substance  of  Faith  Allied  with 

Science.     New   York,   1907. 
MiLMiNE,    Georgine,    Mary   Baker    G.    Eddy.     McClure's 

Magazine,  serial  beginning  January,  1907. 
Moll,  Albert,  Hypnotism.     New  York,  1894. 
More,    Paul   Elmer,    The    Great   Refusal.     Boston    and 

New  York,  1894.  ^ 

Musser,    John    H.     A    Practical    Treatise    on    Medical 

Diagnosis.     Philadelphia,  1900. 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  Human  Personality,  2  vols.     New  York, 

1903. 
OSLER,  William,  The  Principles  and  Practice  of  Medicine. 

New  York,  1892. 
,  Medicine  in  The  Progress  of  the  Century.     New 

York,  1901. 
QuiMBY,  George  A.,  Phineas  Parkhurst  Quimhy,  in  The 

New  England  Magazine,   March,   1888. 
Richardson,  T.  H.,  Race  Suicide  and  Christian  Science, 

in   The  Canadian  Journal  of  Medicine  and  Surgery. 

Toronto,  October,  1906. 
Schofield,    a.    T.,    a    Study    of    Faith    Healing.     New 

York. 

,  Nerves  in  Disorder,  New  York,  1903. 

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Service,  in  Review  of  Revieivs,  Nov.  1905. 
The    Spectator,    Feb.    16    and    23,    1907,    The    Power    of 

Suggestion. 
Suzuki,  S.,  Sanitation  of  the  Jajmnese  Navy,  in  Revietv 

of  Reviews,   Nov.,  1905. 


xviii  Bibliography 

Taylor,  J.  Madison,  Drugs  and  their  Abuses,  in  Popular 

Science  Monthly,  May.  1907. 
Thomson,   W.   H.,  Brain    and  Personality.     New    York, 

1907. 
TuCKEY,  C.  Lloyd,  Treatment  by  Hypnotism  and  Sugges- 
tion.    New  York,  1907. 
Ward,   Mrs.   Humphrey,   The   History   of  David   Grieve. 

New  York,  1892. 
Wood,  Irving  F.,  The  Spirit  of  God  in  Biblical  Literature. 

New  York,  1904. 
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May,  1899. 
Zechandelaer,     Dr.,    Suggestion,    in     The    Hollandsche 

Revue,  1907. 
Zola,  Emile,  Lourdes.    London,  1903. 

To  this  list  should  be  added  the  collection  of  newspaper 
clippings  and  magazine  articles  of  Dr.  Talcott  Williams 
of  Philadelphia,  to  which  reference  is  made  in  the  Preface. 


CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 


CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 


CHAPTER  I 

CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE   AND    HISTORIC 
CHRISTIANITY 

A  Strained  Relationship — The  Cause — Aim  of  Christian 
Science — Its  Criticism  of  the  Churches — Mrs.  Eddy's 
Purpose — Unconscious  Proselyting — The  Virtues  of 
the  Scientists — Weakness  of  Christian  Churches — 
The  Danger  Point. 

I  F  there  is  to-day  a  strained  relationship  be- 
*  tween  historic  Christianity  and  Christian 
Science,  the  fault  chiefly,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  is  with  Christian  Science.  The  facts  in 
evidence  are  incontestable. 

Christian  Science  has  passed  through  no 
such  persecution  as  the  early  Church  experi- 
enced. While  now  and  then  some  minister 
has  raised  his  voice  or  pen,  he  has  always 
spoken  for  himself  alone,  and  not  always  even 
then  in  criticism  severed  from  appreciation. 


2  Christian  Science 

Far  from  any  disposition  to  drive  out  the  mem- 
bers of  their  flock  turned  Christian  Scientists, 
most  ministers  have,  if  I  may  trust  my  observa- 
tion and  inquiry,  tried  by  kindly  toleration  and 
by  friendly  words  to  keep  them  in  the  fold. 
When,  nevertheless,  they  would  go  out,  many 
ministers  have  watched  them  go  more  in 
sorrow  than  in  bitterness. 

Even  a  careless  reader  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  books 
is  obliged  to  see  that  Mrs.  Eddy  came  not,  like 
Jesus,  to  fulfil  but  to  destroy.  She  was 
prompt  in  breaking  with  the  past.  The  know- 
ledge she  had  gleaned  from  school  books 
vanished,  she  remarks,  when  she  discovered 
Christian  Science.^  Between  Christ  and  her, 
all  along  the  intervening  centuries,  she  hints, 
no  thinker  has  appeared,  and  she  quietly  ob- 
serves, "  The  time  for  thinkers  has  come. 
Truth  independent  of  doctrines  and  time- 
honoured  systems,  knocks  at  the  portal  of 
humanity."  " 

Christian  Science  was  not  the  culmination  of 
a  movement.  "  I  have  found  nothing,"  she 
says,  "  in  ancient  or  modern  systems  on  which 
to  found  my  own."  ^  It  was  a  revelation.  No 
one  had  made  ready  for  it.     No  one  could.    It 

1  Here  and  elsewhere  the  numerals  in  the  text  refer  to 
notes  at  the  end  of  the  volume. 


And  Historic  Christianity  3 

flashed  upon  her  as  soon  as  she  was  ready  to 
receive  it/  and  when  it  did  it  was  "  higher, 
clearer,  and  more  permanent  "  than  His  revela- 
tion was  to  Jesus. ^ 

Though  there  are  signs  of  late  that  some  of 
her  representatives  do  not  sharply  discrimi- 
nate between  a  revelation  and  an  evolution, 
Mrs.  Eddy's  course  in  this  regard  has  been 
steadily  consistent.  She  withdrew  from  the 
church  of  her  upbringing.  She  founded  a 
church  of  her  own.  She  gave  to  it  rules  and 
by-laws  "  impelled  by  a  power  not  her  own."  ^ 
She  claims  for  her  text-book,  which  contains — 
as  she  states — the  revelation,  a  place  of  equal 
importance  with  the  Bible  in  the  public  ser- 
vices of  her  church.  She  calls  her  book 
"  God's  Book  "  and  the  "  Book  of  Books."  ' 
She  contends  that  it  is  as  truly  authorised  by 
Christ  as  is  the  Bible. ^ 

A  quarter  of  a  century  has  passed  since  she 
began  to  preach  in  the  "  Mother  Church  in 
Boston,"  and  nowhere  all  along  the  years,  if 
her  books  are  a  criterion,  has  she  shown  any 
disposition  to  affiliate  with  those  who  do  not 
share  her  point  of  view  and  who  yet  believe 
that  they  are  Christians.  In  spite  of  Mrs. 
Eddy's  protest  in  The  Independent  of  Nov. 
22,  1906,  that  she  "loves  the  prosperity  of 


4  Christian  Science 

Zion,  be  it  promoted  by  Catholic,  by  Protest- 
ant, or  by  Christian  Science,"  there  is  no  mis- 
taking what  hes  back  of  words  hke  these, 
written  as  long  ago  as  1890: 

Christian  Science  is  the  pure  evangelic  truth. 
It  accords  with  the  trend  and  tenor  of  Christ's 
teaching  and  example,  while  it  demonstrates  the 
power  of  Christ  as  taught  in  the  four  gospels. 
Truth,  casting  out  evils  and  healing  the  sick;  Love 
fulfilling  the  law,  and  keeping  man  unspotted  from 
the  world — these  practical  manifestations  of  Christi- 
anity constitute  the  only  evangelism,  and  they 
need  no  creed.^  Outside  of  this  science  all  is  un- 
stable error.i^ 

She  calls  the  faith  of  others  blind  behef  rest- 
ing on  the  evidences  of  the  senses  rather  than 
on  the  teaching  and  practice  of  Jesus,  or  the 
world  of  spirit.^^  She  hints  that  her  sense, 
whatever  it  may  be,  is  a  higher  sense  than 
yours  or  mine,  and  speaks  outright  about  our 
ignorance/^  She  says  that  "  sin  makes  deadly 
thrusts  at  the  Christian  Scientist,  as  natural- 
ism and  creed  are  summoned  to  give  place 
to  higher  law."  She  gives  twelve  pages, 
above  her  average  in  clearness,  in  the  late  edi- 
tions of  Science  and  Health  to  the  identifica- 
tion of  modern  Christians  with  the  ancient 
Pharisees/^ 


And  Historic  Christianity  5 

Men  may  differ  about  even  the  essentials  of 
Christian  faith  and  yet  wish  each  other  well 
so  long  as  they  believe  in  one  another's  honesty 
of  purpose.  But  how  can  there  be  the  entente 
cordiale  between  historic  Christianity  and 
Christian  Science  with  Mrs.  Eddy  falling  into 
what  comes  close  to  personal  abuse? 

As  in  Jesus'  time,  so  to-day,  tyranny  and  pride 
need  to  be  whipped  out  of  the  temple,  and  humility 
and  divine  science  welcomed  in.  The  strong  cords 
of  scientific  demonstration  as  twisted  and  wielded 
by  Jesus  are  still  needed,  to  purge  the  temples  of 
their  worldly  policy,  and  make  them  meet  dwelling 
places  for  the  Most  High.^^ 

As  Charles  Francis  Adams  reminded  Lord 
Russell  at  a  memorable  moment  in  our  coun- 
try's history,  this  sort  of  thing  is  war,  and  no 
talk  about  love  in  the  abstract,  no  injunction 
to  "do  good  unto  your  enemies  when  the  op- 
portunity comes,"  ^^  no  protestation  that  Mrs. 
Eddy  loves  the  orthodox  church,  can  make  up 
for  the  lack  of  love  displayed  through  many  of 
her  writings.  It  is  war.  Mrs.  Eddy  pictures 
it  in  her  parody  on  The  Charge  of  the  Light 
Brigade: 

""  Traitors  to  right  of  them, 
M.  D.'s  to  left  of  them. 
Priestcraft  in  front  of  them, 
Volleyed  and  thundered.''  ^^ 


6  Christian  Science 

It  is  war.  But  as  Mrs.  Eddy,  more  accu- 
rate than  she  designed,  describes  it,  war  of 
her  own  making  on  those  who  have  gone  out 
from  her,  on  doctors,  and  on  clergymen, — 
all  of  whom  she  pictures  in  her  doggerel  as 
in  an  attitude,  not  of  offence,  but  of  vigorous 
self-defence. 

Be  not  deceived.  Mrs.  Eddy  means  to 
drive  historic  Christianity  out  of  people's 
minds  and  to  put  her  faith  in  place  of  it. 
"  We  can  not  fill  vessels  already  full.  They 
must  first  be  emptied,"  ^^  she  remarks.  Be- 
fore she  published  her  text-book  in  1875,  she 
was  making  it  obligatory  on  her  followers  to 
break  with  their  past,  ^^  and  to-day  the  conver- 
sion of  a  man  or  woman  to  Christian  Science 
invariably  detaches  them,  in  thought  at  least, 
from  the  church  of  their  first  love  and  leads  to 
their  afiiliation,  actual  if  not  always  nominal 
at  first,  with  the  band  of  the  like-minded.  For 
a  Christian  Scientist,  old  things  are  passed 
away,  all  things  are  become  new. 

Everywhere,  the  Christian  Science  organisa- 
tion is  made  up,  it  would  seem,  of  those  who 
have  come  out  of  Christian  churches  and  who 
keep  out  of  touch  with  other  Christians, 
I  who  interpret  the  embarrassment  their  own 
i  aloofness  causes  as  distraint,  charge  honest  in- 


And  Historic  Christianity  7 

quiry  to  unfriendliness,  claim  all  criticism  to  be 
persecution,  and  serve  year  in,  year  out,  as 
magnets,  not  to  draw  the  heathen  far  or  near, 
but  to  draw  the  discontented  and  the  ill- 
informed  from  their  proper  church  allegi- 
ance/^ 

]\Iistaking  incoherence  for  illumination,  they 
put  into  the  minds  of  those  who  have  perhaps 
no  philosophy  of  life,  a  philosophy  so  difficult 
to  understand  that  when  an  inquirer  in  all 
honesty  both  fails  to  understand  and  refuses  to 
accept  on  trust,  his  intelligence  is  questioned  or 
his  sincerity  denied.  INIistaking  pseudo-scien- 
tific terminology  for  scientific  truth,  they  give 
to  people  who  may  be  informed  in  everything 
but  science,  conceptions  which  would  crowd 
out  of  even  the  most  spacious  mind  every  fact 
that  science  has  discovered  and  every  general- 
isation that  science  has  established.  Mistaking 
optimistic  vagueness  for  Christian  revela- 
tion, they  allure  from  their  allegiance  the 
generous,  the  high-minded,  and  the  over- 
trustful,  who  appearing  to  find  in  Christian 
Science  relief  from  certain  ills  they  thought  in- 
curable, straightway  forget  that  a  little  know- 
ledge is  a  dangerous  thing  and  hasten  on  to  the 
conclusion  that  Christian  Science  must  be  true 
in  all  respects  because  it  may  be  true  in  one. 


8  Christian  Science 

No  one  doubts  the  good  intentions  of  the 
Christian  Scientists.  Some  of  the  purest  souls 
aUve  to-day  are  Christian  Scientists.  They 
have  done  much  good.  Allowing  all  you  will 
for  exaggeration,  there  can  be  no  denying  that 
/  Christian  Scientists  have  helped  the  sick,  re- 
formed the  drunkard,  reclaimed  the  prodigal, 
brought  surcease  to  many  a  sorrow  and  anxi- 
ety, tempered  life's  asperities,  furnished  a 
philosophy  for  every-day  existence  where  there 
was  none  before,  filled  souls  with  what  Charles 
Klein  has  called  "  happiness  far  beyond  my 
wildest  dreams." 

To  an  age  grown  weary  and  impatient  of 
'^-  ecclesiasticism  and  machinery.  Christian  Sci- 
entists have  brought  something  of  the  warmth 
and  glow,  the  freshness  and  the  spontaneity, 
the  poise  and  the  sincerity,  the  gladness  and 
the  other  worldliness  which  suffused  the  Apos- 
tolic age  and  made  it  all  alive  with  spiritual 
power.-^ 

The  early  Christians  lived  above  hfe's  fret 
and  turmoil.  They  knew  the  peace  which 
passeth  understanding.  They  endured  as 
seeing  Him  who  is  invisible.  They  lived  for 
Jesus  Christ  and  Him  alone.  Knit  together 
''  in  one  holy  bond  of  truth  and  peace,  of  faith 
and  charity,"  they  went  out  to  win  the  world 
to  Christ. 


And  Historic  Christianity  9 

Christians  to-day  in  many  places  seem  to 
have  lost  the  Apostolic  spirit.  They  appear 
sometimes  to  believe  with  their  heads  but  not 
with  their  hearts.  There  is  much  in  Christen- 
dom now  to  recall  the  situation  in  Rome  when 
*'  every  man  had  two  religions;  the  one  he  pro- 
fessed and  the  other  he  believed."  -^  Chris- 
tian work  to-day  is  far  too  often  automatic. 
Christians  are  too  prone  to  give  everything  but 
themselves  to  the  cause  they  represent.  For- 
getting that  the  good  fight  of  faith  is  never 
won  by  hirelings,  they  are  apt  to  send  sub- 
stitutes in  their  stead  and  to  repair  to  the  golf 
links.  Guilds  and  societies  are  frequent  and 
inadequate  representatives  of  "  one  holy  bond 
of  truth  and  peace,  of  faith  and  charity." 

While  this  is  distinctively  a  church-build- 
ing age,  it  is  not  so  clearly  a  church-going  age. 
Men  are  so  small  a  proportion  of  the  average 
congregation  that  the  faith  is  often  feminised.^^ 
The  Church's  loss  of  moral  leadership  is  every- 
where admitted.  The  Priest  and  Levite,  as 
President  Eliot  said  the  other  day,  too  often 
pass  by  the  great  evils  of  the  age.  Church 
papers  now  are  in  the  stage  of  explanation. 
The  great  preachers  of  the  new  redemption  of 
society  are  found  in  the  White  House,  the  cabi- 
net, and  the  editorial  room,  oftener  than  the 
pulpit.     Far    from    standing    together    and 


lo  Christian  Science 

together  going  out,  as  early  Christians  did,  to 
conquer  all  for  Christ,  the  Christian  Church  at 
large  is  broken  up  into  conflicting  sects,  and 
the  individual  church  in  many  a  place  is  di- 
vided into  sets  distrustful  of  one  another  and 
insistent  on  those  undemocratic  class  distinc- 
tions which  are  the  bane  of  Church  and  State 
alike  and  which  make  the  Church,  though  not 
the  Christ,  a  hissing  and  a  by-word  everywhere. 

And  God,  unless  the  signs  belie  Him,  is 
growing  weary  of  it  all.  He  is  saying  in 
these  days  to  many  a  church  that  will  not  hear 
his  voice:  "  Bring  me  no  more  vain  oblations. 
.  .  .  Your  appointed  feasts  my  soul  hateth; 
they  are  a  trouble  unto  me ;  I  am  weary  to  bear 
them!"  "What  doth  the  Lord  require  of 
thee  but  to  do  justly  and  to  love  mercy,  and 
to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God?"^^  There 
must  be  a  return  all  along  the  line  to  Apos- 
tolic simplicity.  Apostolic  spontaneity.  Apos- 
tolic love.  Apostolic  joy,  and  Apostolic  peace. 
And  Christian  Science,  whatever  be  its  limita- 
tions, seems  to  some  to  blaze  a  way. 

Christian  Science  has  its  faults,  but  Chris- 
tian Scientists,  whatever  the  demerits  of  their 
system,  have  many  virtues  to  their  credit. 
"  They  are  sincere  and  filled  with  that  moral 
enthusiasm  that  is  a  potent  motor  power  in  all 


And  Historic  Christianity  n 

great  religious  or  ethical  movements  in  their 
early  days."  -^  They  believe  in  spiritual 
things,  and  they  are  as  bold  in  uttering  their 
belief  as  were  the  early  Christians.  There  is 
never  the  apologetic  note  for  which  one  in- 
stinctively listens  in  the  talk  of  many  Chris- 
tians in  these  days.  They  are  protests  in  the 
flesh  against  the  worldliness  and  the  ecclesi- 
asticism  which  afflict  the  Church,  and  the 
materialism  and  lust  which  threaten  the  foun- 
dations of  the  social  order.  They  furnish 
everyw^here  proof  positive  and  peace-bringing, 
that  where  there  is  a  will  there  is  a  way  to  live 
the  spirit's  life  against  all  odds. 

And  yet  in  spite  of  all  the  virtues  which  I 
find  in  Christian  Scientists  and  more  readily 
admit  because  I  count  them  rather  the  product 
of  historic  Christianity  than  of  Christian 
Science,  I  see  in  Christian  Science  defects 
which  in  time  will  either  relegate  it  to  the 
limbo  of  exploded  heresies  or  which,  should 
it  possibly  become  the  universal  faith — a  mani- 
fest improbability — will  take  from  the  world 
all  humanity  has  learned  in  ages  past,  will 
write  falsehood  across  the  brow  of  philosophy, 
science,  and  religion,  and  will  give  us  in  the 
place  of  what  we  have,  the  inheritance  of  the 
centuries,  some  sort  of  anarchy. 


CHAPTER  II 

SCIENCE  AND  HEALTH 

Source  of  its  Authority — Takes  Precedence  of  the  Bible — 
Exorbitant  Selling  Price — Its  Healing  Power — Re- 
lationship to  New  Thought  Literature — Faults  of 
Style — Value  as  a  Commentary  on  Bible — Fantastic 
Exegesis — Element  of  Peril — How  it  Differs  From  the 
Bible — The  House  Upon  the  Sand. 

\\fmiljEi  there  is  an  abundant  literature 
'  '  on  Christian  Science,  there  is  but  one 
authentic  source  of  information.  That  is  Mrs. 
Eddy's  monumental  book,  Science  and  Healthy 
first  pubhshed  in  1875,  and  now  past  its  440th 
edition.  It  is  a  portly  volume  of  some  seven 
hundred  pages  and  more  than  two  hundred 
thousand  words.  But  large  as  is  the  book,  its 
claim  for  authority  is  larger.  The  author 
gravely  writes  that  Science  and  Health  is  "  the 
voice  of  Truth  to  this  age,  and  contains  the 
whole  of  Christian  Science."  ^  The  book  is  to 
be  read  at  every  Christian  Science  service  in 
explanation  of  the  Bible,  and  is,  Mrs.  Eddy 
says,  through  her  official  representatives,  as 


Science  and  Health  13 

"  uncontaminated  and  unfettered  by  human 
hypotheses "  as  is  the  Bible,  and  as  surely 
''  authorised  by  Christ."  - 

But  this  surprising  claim  is  modesty  itself 
compared  with  the  larger  claim  which  Mrs. 
Eddy  makes  in  her  autobiography  that  Science 
and  Health  occupies  a  vantage  ground  which 
the  Bible  does  not  share.  These  are  her  own 
words :  "  The  Scripture  gave  no  direct  inter- 
pretation of  the  Scientific  basis  for  demonstrat- 
ing the  spiritual  Principle  of  healing,  until  our 
Heavenly  Father  saw  fit,  through  the  key  to 
the  Scriptures,  in  Science  and  Health,  to  un- 
lock '  this  mystery  of  Godliness.'  "  ^  And  then, 
as  though  to  allay  the  dismay  such  words  are 
apt  to  bring  to  those  who  read  them  first,  she 
writes  in  1901 :  "I  should  blush  to  write  of 
Science  and  Health,  with  Key  to  the  Scrip- 
^tures,  as  I  have,  were  it  of  human  origin,  and 
I  apart  from  God,  its  author;  but  as  I  was 
only  a  scribe  echoing  the  harmonies  of  heaven, 
I  can  not  be  supermodest  of  the  Christian 
Science  text-book."  ^ 

After  this,  one  is  not  surprised  to  find  the 
Bible  yielding  first  place  in  Christian  Science 
worship  to  the  Christian  Science  text-book. 
It  seems  fitting  in  the  light  of  INIrs.  Eddy's 
estimate   of   the   relative   importance    of   the 


14  Christian  Science 

Bible  and  her  book  that  the  Second  Reader, 
not  the  First,  should  read  aloud  the  Scripture 
texts  while  to  the  First  Reader  falls  the  more 
important  task  of  reading  the  passages  from 
Science  and  Health  which  are  expected  to  ex- 
plain in  full  the  meaning  of  the  Bible  words. ^ 

But  to  the  practical  mind  far  more  signifi- 
cant is  the  amazing  difference  in  the  selling 
price  of  the  two  books.  The  Bible  with  its 
million  words  can  be  bought  by  any  one  for 
fifteen  cents.^  Science  and  Healthy  not  one- 
fourth  as  large,  sells  in  its  least  expensive  form, 
for  $3.18.  Whether  rich  or  poor,  you  must 
pay  for  Science  and  Health,  allowing  for  the 
difference  in  size  of  the  two  books,  eighty  times 
as  much  as  you  may  pay  for  your  Bible.  The 
Bible  is  sold  at  cost  in  the  cheaper  editions. 
Science  and  Health  in  its  cheapest  form  yields 
a  profit  to  its  author  amounting  probably  to 
several  hundred  per  cent. 

In  quantities  of  one  hundred  thousand  copies 
Science  and  Health  can,  as  I  am  informed, 
be  reproduced  at  a  cost  of  from  thirty  to  forty 
cents  a  copy.  Mark  Twain,  with  his  life-long 
experience  as  both  an  author  and  a  publisher, 
thinks  that  the  cost  would  be  much  smaller 
in  the  case  of  a  book  like  Science  and  Health 
''  whose  market  is  so  sure  and  so  great  that  you 


Science  and  Health  15 

can  give  a  printer  a  standing  order  for  thirty 
or  forty  or  fifty  thousand  copies  a  year,"  which 
will  enable  him  to  work  at  the  contract  "  when- 
ever there  is  a  slack  time  in  his  press-room 
and  bindery."  "^  In  confirmation  of  Mark 
Twain's  estimate,  an  easy  calculation  will 
clearly  indicate  that  the  weekly  output  of 
Science  and  Health  is  now  about  a  thousand 
copies  and  a  new  edition  is  run  off  the  press 
every  two  or  three  weeks. 

The  Publication  Committee,  after  disclaim- 
ing all  specific  knowledge  of  the  facts,  says 
that  the  Christian  Science  text-book  is 
"  printed  in  small  quantities  and  with  constant 
changes,"  that  there  is  a  profit  to  the  publisher 
and  the  retailer  to  be  taken  into  account,  and 
that  the  expense  of  transportation  is  paid  by 
the  publisher  in  lots  of  one  dozen  or  more.^ 

But  such  an  explanation  is  not  adequate. 
The  cost  of  making  the  plates  is  the  same  for 
one  copy  as  for  one  hundred  thousand  copies. 
The  changes  made  from  time  to  time  cannot 
be  considerable  in  a  book  of  which  there  have 
been  in  ten  years  almost  three  hundred  new 
issues,  an  average  of  almost  three  a  month.^ 
It  is  also  of  significance  that  in  the  preparation 
of  the  Bible  lessons  for  the  present  quarter, 
not  the  440th  edition,  but  the  379th  was  used, 


1 6  Christian  Science 

and  "  most  of  the  references  can  be  found," 
says  the  note  for  students  of  the  lessons,  "  in 
the  previous  editions "  back  as  far  as  the 
226th,  which  appeared  some  years  ago/^ 

With  full  allowance  for  proper  compensa- 
tion to  the  publisher,  the  retailer,  and  the 
transportation  companies,  there  will  still  be 
for  the  author  a  profit  of  several  hundred  per 
cent.  Mrs.  Eddy  has  actually  acknow- 
ledged in  the  case  of  Eddy  versus  Frye  et  al 
that  she  has  an  estate  amounting  to  almost  a 
million  dollars,"  most  of  which  has  doubtless 
accumulated  from  the  sale  of  Science  and 
Health,  of  which  every  Christian  Scientist  is 
obliged  to  circulate  and  sell  as  many  copies  as 
possible  on  pain  of  losing  "  his  membership  in 
the  church."  ^^ 

Again,  Mrs.  Eddy  claims  for  her  book  what 
has  never  in  all  the  Christian  centuries  been 
claimed  for  the  Bible,  that  the  mere  reading  of 
it  "heals  sickness  constantly."  The  Earl 
of  Dunmore,  who  died  August  27,  testifies  that 
his  wife  was  "  hterally  snatched  from  the  jaws 
of  death  through  reading  the  Christian  Science 
text-book."  The  palsied  arm  of  another  was 
cured  by  reading  the  single  sentence  "  All  is 
Mind."  ^^  And  some  have  claimed  that  one 
sentence  fully  understood  will  cure  disease  of 


Science  and  Health  17 

any  sort.  The  spiritual  atmosphere  which  the 
book  generates,  wherever  and  whenever  it  is 
read,  is  too  rarefied  to  nourish  long  the  false 
view  that  we  are  sick;  therefore  we  get  well. 

Many  of  the  thoughts  found  in  Science  and 
Health  abound  in  the  Christian  literature  of 
this  and  of  other  times.  Much  of  it  is  familiar 
to  those  who  read  the  New  Thought  books  of 
Henry  Wood  and  Charles  Brodie  Patterson.^^ 
In  them  as  well  as  in  the  Christian  Science 
text-book  there  is  insistence  on  the  unity  of 
all  life  and  of  all  intelligence  gathered  up  into 
the  thought  of  God  as  "  All  in  all."  But  as  to 
matter,  sin,  and  pain  there  is  a  constant  and 
irreconcilable  difference.  The  New  Thought 
does  not  invalidate  the  evidence  of  the  senses. 
The  New  Thought  does  not  dodge  the  realities 
of  life.  The  New  Thought  admits  the  actual 
existence  of  matter,  sin,  and  pain,  but  teaches 
us  to  rise  above  them  on  the  spirit's  wings. 
Christian  Science  dismisses  them  as  vain 
imaginings  of  mortal  mind  and  is  put  to  such 
shrift  to  deny  their  existence  as  makes  Science 
and  Health  sometimes  read,  says  Dr.  Elwood 
Worcester,  "  like  the  writing  of  a  philosopher 
suffering  from  acute  softening  of  the  brain." 

The  difficulty  is  not  merely  with  the  style, 
which  though  often  marred  by  absurdity,  tur- 


1 8  Christian  Science 

gidity,  and  faulty  diction,  possesses  a  certain 
lofty  distinctiveness,  a  certain  sonorous  au- 
thoritativeness,  which  a  book  that  claims  to  be 
a  revelation  ought  to  have  to  command  the 
interest  of  the  undiscriminating.  The  diffi- 
culty is  also  with  the  arrangement  of  the  work. 
There  is  a  woful  want  of  sequence  both  in 
thought  and  word.  The  reader  can  begii^ 
anywhere  and  stop  anywhere  without  serious 
loss  or  gain.  Mrs.  Eddy  in  one  section  states 
that  certain  of  her  sentences  read  backward 
mean  as  much  as  when  read  forward,  and  many 
not  of  her  persuasion  will  readily  agree  with 
her. 

No  matter  what  editions  you  may  chance  to 
be  comparing,  there  is  an  unexpected  insta- 
bility of  arrangement  in  a  book  which  the  au- 
thor claims  is  of  the  nature  of  "  final  revela- 
tion." Mrs.  Eddy  is  not  content  to  let  the 
sequence  remain  permanent.  Of  four  editions 
dated,  respectively,  1881, 1888, 1898,  and  1906, 
the  chapter  which  comes  first  in  the  first  and 
second  of  the  four  editions  comes  fifth  in  the 
third  and  sixth  in  the  fourth.  The  second 
chapter  in  the  first  and  second  editions  is  third 
and  eighth  respectively  in  the  third  and  fourth. 
The  third  chapter  in  the  first  edition  appears 
as  the  fifth  in  the  second,  the  second  in  the 


Science  and  Health  19 

third,  and  the  seventh  in  the  fourth.  Chapter 
IV  in  the  first  edition  is  Chapter  XII  in  the 
second  and  XIV  in  the  third  and  fourth 
editions.  Chapter  V  in  the  first  is  IX  in  the 
second,  XII  in  the  third  and  fourth.  And 
the  variation  lasts  throughout. 

Lucidity  is  an  honest  test  to  apply  to  any 
modern  Anglo-Saxon  book.  Those  who  think 
clearly  and  write  clearly  can  state  the  truth 
to-day  in  terms  the  average  mind  can  under- 
stand. And  when  normal  people  find  men  as 
high  above  the  average  as  the  Rev.  Drs.  Ly- 
man Abbot,  George  A.  Gordon,  J.  M.  Buck- 
ley, and  Elwood  Worcester  differing  among 
themselves  as  to  the  meaning  of  Science 
and  Health  it  is  not,  perhaps,  unreasonable 
to  conclude  that  the  responsibility  rests 
not  on  the  reader  but  on  the  author  of  the 
book. 

Mrs.  Eddy  has  undoubtedly  improved 
greatly  in  her  power  to  express  herself  on  pa- 
per, since  her  hterary  helper  ^^  twenty  years 
ago  testified  she  was  constantly  confusing 
such  words  as  physics  and  physiology,  gnostic 
and  agnostic,  and  putting  him  to  his  wits'  end 
to  save  her  "  from  making  herself  ridiculous 
and  from  flatly  contradicting  herself."  But 
there    is    still    some    justification    for    Mark 


20  Christian  Science 

Twain's  sweeping  judgment  that  Mrs.  Eddy 
"  so  lacks  in  the  matter  of  hterary  precision 
that  she  can  seldom  put  a  thought  into  words 
that  express  it  lucidly  to  the  reader  and  leave 
no  doubts  in  his  mind  as  to  whether  he  has 
rightly  understood  or  not."  ^^ 

Philosophy  is  broken  up  to-day  into  three 
camps.  In  one,  matter  is  regarded  as  the  only 
reality ;  in  another,  mind  and  matter  seem  alike 
substantial;  in  the  third,  matter  is  steadily 
characterised  as  but  a  form  of  thought.  It  is 
in  this  camp  that  Mrs.  Eddy  can  be  found,  but 
she  has  a  special  tent.  Her  philosophy  is  a 
"  crude  unintelligent  form  of  idealistic  panthe- 
ism." ^^  Her  purpose  is  to  superimpose  it  on 
organic  Christianity  by  making  Science  and 
Health  the  one  authoritative  commentary  on 
the  Bible. 

To  the  most  audacious  task  any  commenta- 
tor ever  undertook  Mrs.  Eddy  brings  no- 
thing usually  considered  necessary  to  Biblical 
exegesis.  She  says  in  her  autobiography  that 
she  learned  some  Greek  and  Hebrew  when  she 
was  a  girl.  But  she  also  says  that  all  her  child- 
hood learning  "  vanished  like  a  dream  "  after 
her  discovery  of  Christian  Science.^^ 

If  she  has  any  quality  except  persistence  re- 
quired in  the  scholar  whose  business  it  is  to 


Science  and  Health  21 

find  out  what  the  Bible  means,  no  matter  what 
philosophy  it  may  support,  Mrs.  Eddy  has 
succeeded  all  these  years  in  hiding  it  from  even 
the  most  searching  student  of  her  book.  If 
she  knows  anything  of  the  real  nature  of  the 
problems  on  which  Biblical  experts  are  brood- 
ing in  these  days  she  nowhere  gives  a  sign  of 
it/^  She  indicated  in  a  letter  of  last  April 
her  intention  to  take  up  the  higher  critic- 
ism, but  at  eighty-six  a  mind  is  too  well-sea- 
soned to  be  likely  to  habituate  itself  to  a 
radically  different  point  of  view. 

The  fact  is  that  she  distrusts  all  modern 
learning,  and  with  her  approval  the  Mother 
Church  in  Boston  chose  for  its  new  president, 
June  11,  1907,  a  man  who  put  himself  on  rec- 
ord thus  in  his  acceptance  of  the  office:  "  In  an 
age  of  so-called  higher  criticism,  wherein  the 
fundamental  truths  of  the  Bible  are  openly 
assailed  and  cast  aside  as  impractical  and 
visionary,  it  remains  to  them  [Christian  Scien- 
tists] to  preserve  for  future  generations  the 
very  integrity  of  the  Scriptures."  ^^ 

Her  exegesis  of  specific  words  is  but  the^^X 
reading  into  them  of  meaning  necessary  to  ,' 
support  her  strange  philosophy.     To  oblige  a 
commentator  so  ambitious  one  w^ould  beheve, 
if  it  were  possible,  that  Science  and  Health 


22  Christian  Science 

contains,  as  its  author  earnestly  assures  us, 
"  the  metaphysical  interpretation  of  Bible 
terms — giving  their  spiritual  sense,  which  is 
also  their  original  meaning."  But  how  can 
it  be  possible  with  interpretations  offered  us  as 
fanciful  as  these?  ^^ 

Adam  "  represents  the  false  supposition "  that 
"  the  Infinite  enters  the  finite." 

Ark  means  "  the  understanding  of  spirit,  destroy- 
ing belief  in  matter.'' 

Baptism  is  ^^  submergence  in  Truth." 

Children  are  "  counterfeits  of  creation,  whose 
better  originals  are  God's  thoughts." 

Dan  is  "  animal  magnetism :  so-called  mortal  mind 
controlling  mortal  mind." 

Death:  "  Any  material  evidence  of  death  is 
false." 

Mortal  Mind:  "  Nothing,  claiming  to  be  some- 
thing." 

Mother:  "  God,  divine  and  eternal  Principle,  Life, 
Truth,  and  Love." 

'New  Jerusalem:  "  Divine  Science." 

Noah:  "  Knowledge  of  the  nothingness  of  material 
things,  and  the  immortality  of  all  that  is  spiritual." 

Will:  "  The  motive-power  of  error." 

ISTo  less  fanciful  is  Mrs.  Eddy  in  the  inter- 
pretation of    specific    texts. ^^     Her    practice 
is,  as  in  the  exegesis  of  words,  to  give  every 
text  the  meaning  it  should  have  to  illustrate 
'her  philosophy. 


Science  and  Health  23 

"  Thy  kingdom  come  "  she  thus  explains  re- 
gardless of  the  tense:  "  Thy  kingdom  is  within 
us,  Thou  art  ever  present." 

"  That  was  the  true  Light,  which  lighteth 
every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world,"  carries 
with  it  the  evident  non  sequitur:  "  Truth  cross- 
questioning  man  as  to  his  knowledge  of  error, 
finds  woman  the  first  to  confess  her  fault." 

"  The  Lord  knoweth  the  way  of  the  right- 
eous, but  the  way  of  the  ungodly  shall  perish.'" 
When  a  truth  is  so  self-evident,  why  need 
INIrs.  Eddy  add  "  Truth  has  but  one  reply  to 
all  error,  to  sin,  sickness,  and  death:  'Dust 
(nothingness)  thou  art,  and  unto  dust  (no- 
thingness) shalt  thou  return  '  "  ? 

''  I  am  he  that  liveth  and  was  dead:  and  be- 
hold I  am  alive  for  evermore,  Amen ;  and  have 
the  keys  of  hell  and  of  death."  The  Book  of 
Revelation  is  difficult  at  best  to  understand. 
Explanations  like  the  following  but  enhance 
the  difficulty:  "Truth  should,  and  does  drive 
error  out  of  all  selfhood." 

Once  at  least  Mrs.  Eddy  has  ventured  to 
change  outright  the  words  of  Scripture  so  as 
to  alter  their  essential  meaning.  She  sent  the 
following  telegraphic  greeting  to  the  Na- 
tional Christian  Science  Association  in  session 
in  New  York,  May  27,  1890: 


24  Christian  Science 

"  All  hail!  He  hath  filled  the  hungry  with 
good  things  and  the  sick  he  hath  not  sent  empty 
away. — Mother  Mary" 

When  later  brought  to  account  by  a  dis- 
tressed disciple  for  substituting  "  sick "  for 
*^  rich  "  and  inserting  a  "  not "  where  there 
was  none,  she  showed  at  first  no  disposition  to 
correct  the  error,  though  she  did  correct  it 
casually  two  months  later  in  an  organ  circu- 
lated only  among  her  own  flock.^^ 

People  outside  Christian  Science  will 
scarcely  be  inclined  to  take  Science  and  Health 
seriously  as  a  commentary  on  the  Bible.  And 
yet  the  book  must  not  be  dismissed  too  lightly. 
It  is  read  in  comment  on  the  Bible  every  Sun- 
day at  the  service,  every  week  day  in  the  home. 
Christian  Scientists  are  among  the  few  people 
in  the  land  who  read  their  Bible  every  day. 
Theirs  is  the  only  organisation  in  Christendom 
which  commands  the  Bible  to  be  read  in  the 
light  of  any  commentary.  Science  and  Health 
is  therefore  coupled  with  the  Bible  in  the  minds 
of  some  of  the  most  zealous  propagandists  of 
religion  in  Christendom  to-day,  and  they  num- 
ber many  thousands.  There  are  elements  of 
peril  in  the  situation. 

And  yet  it  can  not  be  that  the  Bible  is  to 
suffer  permanently  from  the  obsession  Mrs. 


Science  and  Health  25 

Eddy's  masterpiece  has  placed  upon  it.  The 
difference  between  the  two  books  is  funda- 
mental. The  Bible  is  built  upon  the  rock  of 
actual  experience.  It  explains  no  facts  away. 
It  throbs  with  life  lived  in  the  body.  It  is  the 
story  of  man's  battle  with  the  beast  within. 
Through  the  pages  of  the  Bible,  from  Genesis 
to  Revelation,  man  is  ever  coming  "  from 
Edom,  with  dyed  garments  from  Bozrah." 
The  Bible  is  stained  through  with  red  blood. 
Real  blows  are  given.  Real  tears  are  shed. 
Real  shouts  of  victory  ring  out  on  the 
air.  Live  men  and  women  tell  us  their  heart 
secrets  and  we  listen  as  though  we  saw  them 
face  to  face.  The  Bible  finds  every  one  be- 
cause it  is  intensely  biographical.  "  Sunrise 
and  sunset,  birth  and  death,  promise  and  fulfil- 
ment, the  whole  drama  of  Humanity  are  all  in 
this  book!  "^^ 

Science  and  Health  is  built  upon  the  sand 
of  metaphysics,  and  on  nothing  else.  It  is 
the  most  successful  effort  which  the  modern 
world  has  seen  to  make  popular  a  philosoph- 
ical abstraction.  It  is,  to  be  sure,  biography, 
but  the  biography  of  a  single  soul,  and  that  a 
soul  which  has  not  entered  deeply  into  life. 
If  the  author  of  Science  and  Health  has  ever 
yielded  herself  in  a  self-forgetful  outpour  of 


26  Christian  Science 

affection  to  any  human  soul,  there  is  no  trace 
of  such  experience  in  her  book.  Once  at  least 
she  has  reproved  a  follower  for  expecting  to 
receive  from  her  a  love  individualised.  The 
love  she  has  for  man  she  gives  to  man  as  an 
abstract  composite.  No  one  would  think  of 
calling  her  what  Henry  Drummond  once  called 
Dwight  L.  Moody,  "  a  big  human."  There 
are  no  heart  throbs  in  her  book.  There  is 
nothing  human  in  it. 

"My  soul  is  athirst  for  God;  yea,  for  the 
hving  God,"  the  psalmist  says.  Mrs.  Eddy 
mildly  hints  that  "  the  human  capacities  are 
enlarged  and  perfected,  in  proportion  as; 
humanity  gains  the  true  conception  of  man 
and  God."  ^^ 

"  The  effectual  fervent  prayer  of  a 
righteous  man  availeth  much,"  St.  James  in- 
forms us.  Mrs.  Eddy  enters  a  demurrer: 
"  This  common  custom  of  praying  for  the  re- 
covery of  the  sick,  finds  help  in  blind  belief; 
whereas  help  should  come  from  the  enlightened 
understanding."  ^^ 

Completely  conscious  of  the  terrible  reality 
of  sin  in  his  own  heart,  St.  Paul  breaks  out: 
"  O  wretched  man  that  I  am!  Who  shall  de- 
liver me  from  the  body  of  this  death? "  Mrs. 
Eddy  would  deftly  pluck  away  anxiety  with 


Science  and  Health  27 

the  impersonal  remark,  "  If  sin  were  under- 
stood as  nothingness  it  would  disappear."  ^^ 

"  These  things  I  command  you,  that  ye  love 
one  another,"  said  the  JNIaster  to  His  friends 
the  night  before  the  crucifixion.  "  Personal 
love  is  little  better  than  personal  hate,"  ^^  is 
Mrs.  Eddy's  contribution  to  the  subject. 

To  those  to  whom  death  seems  something 
more  heart-breaking  than  "the  mortal  dream"-^ 
which  ]\Irs.  Eddy  calls  it,  the  last  book  in  the 
Bible  brings  the  comforting  assurance  that 
"  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their 
eyes."  Mrs.  Eddy  cheers  them  with  the  cold 
comfort  that  "  there  is  no  cause  for  grief."  ^^ 

The  Bible  is  built  upon  the  human  heart. 
That  is  the  reason  why  when  in  ages  past  "  the 
rain  descended,  and  the  floods  came,  and  the 
winds  blew,  and  beat  upon  that  house,  it  fell 
not  ";  "  it  was  founded  upon  a  rock." 

Science  and  Health  is  built  upon  the  sand  of 
metaphysics.  That  is  the  reason  why,  in  spite 
of  INIark  Twain's  generous  prediction,  an- 
other century  may  look  back  on  this  strange 
delusion  and  remark:  "The  rain  descended, 
and  the  floods  came,  and  the  winds  blew,  and 
beat  upon  that  house;  and  it  fell:  and  great 
was  the  fall  of  it." 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  SOURCE  OF  ITS  IDEAS 

Modern  Claim  of  their  Originality — The  Conflict  with  the 
Author's  Earlier  Words — The  Quimby  Panegyrics — 
Teaching  Quimbyism — Cooling  Gratitude — Absolute 
Disavowals — Mesmeric  Explanations — Crux  of  the 
Situation — 1862  versus  1888 — Quimby's  Scrap-book — 
Dr.  Evans's  Testimony — Incapacity  of  Mrs.  Eddy's 
Modern    Witnesses — The    Deadly    Parallel. 


C  OR  the  thoughts  expressed  in  Science  and 
^  Health  Mrs.  Eddy  disavows  indebted- 
ness to  any  human  soul.  "  No  human  pen  or 
tongue,"  she  says  in  1906,  "  taught  me."  "  In 
the  year  1866  I  discovered  the  Christ  Science 
.  .  .  and  named  it  Christian  Science";  and 
to  give  her  claim  Apostolic  import  she  quotes 
in  preface  to  her  words  a  sentence  of  St. 
Paul's:  "  I  neither  received  it  of  man,  neither 
was  I  taught  it,  but  by  the  revelation  of  Jesus 
Christ."  ^ 

Here  the  Christian  Scientist  is  well  content 
to  rest  the  case.  Mrs.  Eddy's  word  suffices. 
He  would  take  her  word  against  the  world. 

28 


The  Source  of  its  Ideas  29 

Evidence,  no  matter  who  may  offer  it,  tending 
to  invahdate  her  word  seems  to  him,  in  the 
premises,  "  dehberate  falsehood."  ^  But  un- 
happily for  the  Christian  Scientist  he  has  to 
reckon  with  other  words,  and  earlier,  from 
Mrs.  Eddy's  pen. 

Thirteen  years  before  Science  and  Health 
appeared,  four  years  before  she  claims  in  1906 
to  have  discovered  Christian  Science,  Mrs. 
Eddy  wrote  of  a  well-known  healer,  P.  F. 
Quimby,  who  cured  her  of  an  illness: 

Now  I  can  dimly  see  at  first,  and  only  as  trees 
walking,  the  great  principle  which  underlies  Dr. 
Quimby's  faith  and  works;  and  just  in  proportion 
to  my  right  perception  of  truth  is  my  recovery. 
This  truth  which  he  opposes  to  the  error  of  giving 
intelligence  to  matter  and  placing  pain  where  it 
never  placed  itself,  if  received  understandingly, 
changes  the  currents  of  the  system  to  their  nor- 
mal action;  and  the  mechanism  of  the  body  goes 
undisturbed.  That  this  is  a  science  capable  of 
demonstration  becomes  clear  to  the  minds  of  those 
patients  who  reason  upon  the  process  of  their 
cure.  3 

Transported  by  sheer  gratitude  she  next 
says  of  Dr.  Quimby,  since  he  "  speaks  as  never 
man  before  spake,  and  heals  as  never  man 
healed  since  Christ,  is  he  not  identified  with 


30  Christian  Science 

truth?     And  is  not  this  the  Christ  which  is  in 
him?"^ 

Grateful  beyond  prose  she  then  proceeds  to 
bathe  her  healer  in  bathetic  doggerel: 

*'  'Mid  light  of  science  sits  the  sage  profound, 
Awing  with  classics  and  his  starry  lore, 
Climbing  with  Venus,  chasing  Saturn  round, 
Turning  his  mystic  pages  o'er  and  o'er. 
Till,  from  empyrean   space,  his  wearied  sight 
Turns  to  the  oasis  on  which  to  gaze, 
More  bright  than  glitters  on  the  brow  of  night 
The  self-taught  man  walking  in  wisdom's  ways. 
Then  paused  the  captive  gaze  with  peace  entwined, 
And  sight  was  satisfied  with  thee  to  dwell; 
But  not  in  classics  would  the  book-worm  find 
That  law  of  excellence  whence  came  the  spell 
Potent  o'er  all, — the  captive  to  unbind, 
To  heal  the  sick  and  faint,  the  halt  and  blind."  ^ 

In  the  months  that  followed  she  talked  in- 
cessantly of  Dr.  Quimby  to  her  friends,  and 
turned  them  into  patients  when  she  could. 
Her  intimate  of  those  days,  Mrs.  Crosby,  in 
whose  home  Mrs.  Eddy  stayed  for  several 
months,  and  of  whom  she  once  wrote  Dr. 
Quimby  "  Mrs.  Crosby  is  one  of  the  precious 
few  affinities  with  whom  I  meet,"  writes  as 
though  there  were  no  doubt  of  Mrs.  Eddy's 
complete  absorption  in  the  views  of  Dr. 
Quimby.      She  adds  that  even  as  late  as  1877, 


The  Source  of  its  Ideas  31 

when  she  was  reporting  Mrs.  Eddy's  lect- 
ures, ]Mrs.  Eddy's  views  were  "  substantially 
the  same "  as  the  two  had  learned 
some  fifteen  years  before  at  Quimby's 
feet.^  The  testimony  of  ]Mr.  and  JNIrs. 
Julius  A.  Dresser,  also  student-patients  when 
Mrs.  Eddy  was,  speaks  to  the  same  effect, 
though  they  note  that  Mrs.  Eddy's  subsequent 
interpretation  of  the  teachings  of  her  master 
was  one-sided.^  And  Quimby's  son,  then 
just  past  his  majority,  says  that  "  Christian 
Science  would  not  now  exist  if  Mrs.  Eddy  had 
not  filched  the  healing  idea  from  him."  ^ 

She  deluged  Dr.  Quimby  with  letters,  which 
she  now  must  wish  were  not  extant,  and  which 
are  overfull  of  fulsome  acknowledgment  of 
her  indebtedness  to  him  for  the  help  he  gave 
her  mind  as  well  as  for  the  healing  of  her  body. 
January  12,  1863,  she  wrote:  "  I  am  to  all  who 
see  me  a  living  wonder,  and  a  living  monu- 
ment of  your  power.  .  .  .  My  explanation 
of  your  curative  principle  surprises  people, 
especially  those  whose  minds  are  all  matter." 
In  letters  that  followed  occur  such  sentences 
as  these:  "Who  is  wise  but  you?"  "Dear 
Doctor,  what  could  I  do  without  you?  "  "  I 
am  up  and  about  to-day,  i.  e.,  by  the  help  of 
the  Lord  (Quimby) ."     "  Jesus  taught  as  man 


32  Christian  Science 

does  not,  who  then  is  wise  but  you?" 
"  Posted  at  the  public  marts  of  this  city  is  this 
notice, — '  Mrs.  M.  M.  Patterson  [now  Mrs. 
Eddy]  will  lecture  at  the  Town  Hall  on  P. 
P.  Quimby's  Spiritual  Science  healing  disease, 
as  opposed  to  Deism  or  Rochester  Rapping 
Spiritualism.'  "  ^ 

When  Dr.  Quimby  died,  January  16,  1866, 
the  year  Mrs.  Eddy  says  she  discovered  Chris- 
tian Science  without  the  help  of  human  pen  or 
tongue,  she  was  concerned  lest  no  one  should 
be  found  strong  enough  to  bend  Ulysses'  bow. 
She  urges  Mr.  Dresser,  a  man  of  unusual 
character  and  ability,  to  take  up  the  work  of 
Quimby  on  the  score  that  no  one  is  so  well 
equipped  as  he  to  carry  on  the  enterprise. 
Then  she  crowns  four  years  of  panegyric  of 
her  healer  and  her  teacher  with  an  obituary 
possibly  as  mellifluous  and  melodramatic  as 
was  ever  visited  on  the  memory  of  any  soul  by 
a  sentimental  and  adoring  worshipper: 

"  Did  sack-cloth  clothe  the  sun  and  day  grow  night, 
AH  matter  mourn  the  hour  with  dewy  eyes, 
When  Truth  receding  from  our  mortal  sight 
Had  paid  to  error  her  last  sacrifice? 

"Can  we  forget  the  power  that  gave  us  life? 
Shall  we  forget  the  wisdom  of  its  way? 


The  Source  of  its  Ideas  33 

Then  ask  me  not  amid  this  mortal  strife — 
This  keenest  pang  of  animated  clay — 

"  To  mourn  him  less ;  to  mourn  him  more  were  just 
If  to  his  memory  't  were  a  tribute  given 
For  every  solemn,  sacred,  earnest  trust 
Delivered  to  us  ere  he  rose  to  heaven. 

"  Heaven  but  the  happiness  of  that  calm  soul, 
Growing  in  stature  to  the  throne  of  God; 
Rest  should  reward  him  who  has  made  us  whole, 
Seeking   though   tremblers,   where   his   footsteps 
trod."  10 

In  the  years  that  followed  Quimby's  death 
in  1866  Mrs.  Eddy  in  season  and  out  was 
preaching  Quimby's  ideas  and  giving  him  the 
credit  for  them  all.  Those  closest  to  her  then 
are  in  complete  agreement  on  this  point.  Dr. 
A.  M.  Gushing,  who  attended  JNIrs.  Eddy 
professionally  in  February,  1866,  and  again  in 
August,  1866,  tells  me  that  as  her  physician 
he  was  much  embarrassed  by  her  frequent  ref- 
erences to  Dr.  Quimby.^^  Mrs.  Julia  Rus- 
sell Walcott  writes  me  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  con- 
tinuous study  of  the  notes  of  Quimby  that 
same  year  at  the  Russells'  in  Lynn  and  at  the 
Wheelers'  in  Swampscott.^^  At  the  Ellises' 
in  Swampscott  she  was  constantly  explaining 
Quimby's  theories  of  mind  and  matter.^^  The 
spring  of  1867  found  her  instructing  Hiram 


34  Christian  Science 

S.  Crafts,  of  East  Stoughton,  in  Quimby's 
healing  system,  and  later,  in  Amesbury,  she 
was  known  as  Quimby's  pupil.  At  the  Went- 
worths'  in  Stoughton,  where  she  stayed  for  two 
years,  her  one  consuming  interest  was  Quimby- 
ism,  and  she  was  continually  emphasising  this. 
Mr.  Richard  Kennedy,  her  partner  in  the  heal- 
ing work  from  1870  to  1872,  bears  tribute  to 
the  largeness  of  the  Quimby  influence  in  her 
life,  and  Mr.  Daniel  H.  Spofford,  who  knew 
her  intimately  in  the  years  that  followed, 
speaks  in  the  same  vein.^* 

But  by  and  by  Mrs.  Eddy's  transports  of 
affection  for  her  teacher  cooled.  As  pupils 
came  beneath  her  spell,  they  began  to  doubt 
whether  Quimby  could  have  meant  so  much  to 
her  as  she  had  thought,  and  she  was  not  un- 
willing to  revise  her  earlier  impressions  in  the 
interest  of  her  growing  fame.  Her  mem- 
ory of  the  details  of  her  relationship  to  Quimby 
steadily  grew  more  and  more  defective.  Her 
earlier  panegyrics  of  him  faded  from  her  recol- 
lection. "  Others  of  his  pupils,"  says  Georgine 
Milmine,  "  lost  themselves  in  Quimby's  philos- 
ophy, but  JNIrs.  Glover  lost  Quimby  in  her- 
self." '^  By  1883  she  was  making  bold  to 
qualify  the  more  tenacious  memory  of  even 
Mrs.  Crosby.     She  tried,  with  the  help  of  a 


i 


The  Source  of  its  Ideas  35 

lawyer,  to  induce  INIrs.  Crosby  to  make  affida- 
vit that  when  they  two  were  fellow-patients 
under  Quimby  more  than  twenty  years  before, 
she  "  used  to  take  his  scribblings  and  fix  them 
over  for  him  and  give  him  my  thoughts  and 
language,  which,  as  I  understood  it,  were  far 
in  advance  of  his."  Mrs.  Crosby's  answer  was 
so  prompt  and  unsatisfying  that  she  has  never 
since  had  word  from  Mrs.  Eddy.^^ 

By  this  time  JNIrs.  Eddy  could  bear  to  write 
with  some  aplomb: 

We  never  were  a  student  of  Dr.  Quimby's.  .  . 
We  were  one  of  his  patients.  .  .  .  We  knew  him 
about  twenty  years  ago,  and  aimed  to  help  him. 
We  saw  he  was  looking  in  our  direction,  and  asked 
him  to  write  his  thoughts  out.  He  did  so,  and  then 
we  would  take  that  copy  to  correct,  and  sometimes 
so  transform  it  that  he  would  say  it  was  our  com- 
position, which  it  virtually  was. 

The  next  year  she  was  able  to  speak  with 
something  close  to  patronising  nonchalance. 

The  old  gentleman  to  whom  w^e  have  referred 
had  some  very  advanced  views  on  healing,  but  he 
was  not  avowedly  religious,  neither  scholarly.  We 
interchanged  thoughts  on  the  subject  of  healing  the 
sick.  I  restored  some  patients  of  his  that  he  failed 
to  heal,  and  left  in  his  possession  some  manuscripts 
of    mine    containing    corrections    of    his    desultory 


pennings.^^ 


36  Christian  Science 

Brought  to  book  by  some  of  the  letters  which 
she  had  written  earher  to  Dr.  Quimby  in  frank 
acknowledgment  of  her  obligations  to  him, 
Mrs.  Eddy  disavows  responsibility  by  assert- 
ing that  she  wrote  these  under  meomeric 
influence. 

"  Did  I  write  those  articles  purporting  to  be 
mine?  "  she  asks  in  the  Boston  Post,  March  7,  1883, 
after  the  publication  of  some  of  the  most  damaging 
of  all  the  letters.  ^'  I  might  have  written  them 
twenty  or  thirty  years  ago,  for  I  was  under  the 
mesmeric  treatment  of  Dr.  Quimby  from  1862  until 
his  death.  .  .  .  My  head  was  so  turned  by  animal 
magnetism  and  will  power,  under  treatment,  that  I 
might  have  written  something  as  hopelessly  incor- 
rect as  the  articles  now  published  in  the  Dresser 
pamphlet.  I  was  not  healed  until  after  the  death 
of  Mr.  Quimby;  and  then  healing  came  as  the  re- 
sult of  my  discovery,  in  1866,  of  the  Science  of 
Mind-healing,  since  named  Christian  Science."  ^^ 

Though  her  literary  helper,  Rev.  J.  H. 
Wiggin,  told  her  frankly  that  there  was  noth- 
ing to  be  said  for  her  new  attitude  toward  Dr. 
Quimby,  and  wrote  in  a  personal  letter  (now 
in  the  possession  of  McClure's  Magazine)  that 
*'  What  Mrs.  Eddy  has,  as  documents  clearly 
prove,  she  got  from  P.  P.  Quimby  of  Portland, 
Me.,  whom  she  eulogised  after  death  as  the 
great  leader  and  her  special  teacher,"  Mrs. 


The  Source  of  its  Ideas  37 

Eddy  has  with  passing  years  grown  more  as- 
sertive that  she  owes  no  debt  to  Dr.  Quimby, 
that  he  in  fact  got  all  he  knew  from  her.  But 
even  thus  she  has  not  steadily  adhered  to  the 
date,  1866,  which  she  sets  in  1906  for  the  dis- 
covery of  her  system.  In  1875  she  gives  the 
year  as  1864;  in  1883  as  1853;  and  in  1887  she 
writes,  "  As  long  ago  as  1844  I  was  convinced 
that  mortal  mind  produced  all  disease  and  that 
the  various  medical  systems  were  in  no  proper 
sense  scientific."^^ 

To  the  Christian  Scientist,  all  this  confusion 
of  dates  and  contradiction  of  facts  presents  no 
problem.  Mrs.  Eddy's  latest  word  is  for  him 
her  authentic  word.  Anything  spoken  hith- 
erto that  does  not  agree  with  what  she  says 
to-day  was  spoken  under  the  mesmeric  in- 
fluence of  animal  magnetism  and  therefore  is 
superseded. 

To  the  generous-minded,  there  will  at  once 
recur  in  the  consideration  of  the  problem  in- 
stances in  which  what  seem  to  be  discrepancies 
of  dates  might  conceivably  be  stepping-stones 
in  the  development  of  a  great  system.  But 
unhappily  Mrs.  Eddy  has  appeared  unwilling, 
since  she  came  to  wider  repute,  to  give  to  her 
master  credit  such  as  once  she  gave  readily  for 
any     share     whatever     in     her     preparation 


38  Christian  Science 

for  an  unusual  career.  Though  one  would 
gladly  attribute  to  mental  incapacity  for  exact 
expression  seeming  inaccuracies  of  statement, 
it  is  a  significant  circumstance,  as  Georgine 
Milmine  hints,^^  that  each  date  or  statement 
given  by  Mrs.  Eddy  appears  to  have  had  the 
purpose  either  of  disavowing  all  indebted- 
ness to  her  teacher  or  of  extricating  herself 
from  some  difficulty  of  the  moment ;  and  if  one 
is  seeking  for  the  truth  and  nothing  but  the 
truth,  one  can  but  hesitate. 

The  essential  issue  is  this:  What  was 
Quimby's  healing  method  when  Mrs.  Eddy 
came  in  1862  into  his  life?  Mrs.  Eddy  says 
in  1888  that  Quimby  was  "  a  distinguished 
mesmerist  and  that  his  method  was  thoroughly 
physical  rather  than  mental."  ^^  But  she 
had  described  it  about  1862  in  terms  that  con- 
tradict her  words  of  1888.  Which  Mrs.  Eddy 
are  we  to  believe,  the  Mrs.  Eddy  of  1888  or 
1862?     Both  cannot  be  believed. 

The  P.  P.  Quimby  who,  alive,  in  1862  fur- 
nished Mrs.  Eddy  the  true  answer  that  she 
gave  that  year,  dead  speaks  to  her  confusion 
now.  There  lies  before  me  as  I  write  a  little 
worn  and  faded  scrap-book.^^  It  bears  on 
the  fly-leaf  the  name  of  P.  P.  Quimby.  It 
was  his  own  book.     His  wife  pasted  in  it  for 


The  Source  of  its  Ideas  39 

him  now  and  then  in  the  fifties  and  early 
sixties  newspaper  comments  on  his  work.  It 
contains  also  an  important  circular  prepared 
with  his  son's  assistance,  which  Quimby  used 
in  the  early  sixties  to  describe  his  healing  meth- 
ods, and  of  which  Mrs.  Eddy  wrote  him,  four 
months  before  she  first  met  him,  "  I  have  en- 
tire confidence  in  your  philosophy  as  read  in 
the  circular." 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  all  the  com- 
ments testify  that  his  method  was  exactty  as 
described  in  1862  by  Mrs.  Eddy.  Two  chp- 
pings,  bearing  the  date  of  1856,  denj^  that  he 
used  mesmerism  and  picture  him  as  saying 
that  "  diseases  of  the  body  are  caused  by  a 
derangement  of  the  mind "  and  as  battling 
with  disease  as  purely  "  mental."  Another,  a 
year  later,  from  the  Ba7igor  Jeffersonian,  de- 
nies that  he  employed  mesmeric  methods  and 
then  proceeds  to  the  illuminating  statement 
that  the  mind  can  cure  as  well  as  cause  disease. 
The  Free  Press,  Lebanon,  New  Hampshire, 
December  3,  1860,  expresses  the  conviction 
that  "  the  foundation  of  his  theory,  regarded 
simply  as  a  belief,  is  that  disease  is  not  self- 
existent  nor  created  by  God,  but  that  it  is 
purely  the  invention  of  man."  Yet  another, 
dated    1861,    announces    that    Quimby    cures 


40  Christian  Science 

even  the  most  desperate  cases  of  disease  "  on 
scientific  principles,  without  the  use  of  medi- 
cine or  any  material  agency;  also  without  the 
aid  of  mesmerism." 

A  clipping  from  the  Portland  Advertiser  of 
February  13,  1862,  contains  Quimby's  own 
statement:  "  I  deny  disease  as  a  truth,  but  ad- 
mit it  as  a  deception."  The  next  month,  in 
the  same  paper.  Dr.  F.  L.  Town,  assistant 
surgeon  in  the  United  States  army,  on  his 
own  responsibility  lifts  Quimby  out  of  the 
class  of  "  spiritualists,  clairvoyants,  and  other 
charlatans." 

Later  in  the  same  year  I  find  in  the  Port- 
land Courier  an  eloquent  denial  that  Quimby 
was  either  a  spiritualist  or  mesmerist,  and  an 
unequivocal  statement  that  under  Quimby's 
care  patients  recovered  "  in  proportion  to 
'  their  '  perception  of  truth."  This  letter  is 
signed  by  Mary  M.  Patterson,  earlier  Mary 
M.  Glover,  and  now  Mary  Baker  G.  Eddy. 

With  these  facts  in  mind  the  reader  will 
probably  be  more  inclined  to  accept  the  word  of 
Mrs.  Patterson  of  1862,  confirmed  as  it  is  by 
others  competent  to  speak,  than  of  Mrs.  Eddy 
of  1888  dismissing  Quimby  merely  as  a  mes- 
merist, and  in  1907  inspiring  a  defender  to 
proclaim  "  that  P.   P.   Quimby  was  a  mes- 


The  Source  of  its  Ideas  41 

merist,  that  he  mesmerised  her  body  and  hyp- 
notised her  thought."  ^^  But  if  anything  is 
wanting  to  enable  one  to  decide  between  Mrs. 
Eddy  of  1862  and  Mrs.  Eddy  of  1888  and 
1907  the  following  circular,  mentioned  above 
and  in  use  from  1860  to  I860,  from  Quimby's 
scrap-book,  will  supply  the  want. 

TO  THE  SICK. 

DR.  P.  P.  QUIMBY  would  respectfully  announce 
to  the  citizens  of  and  vicinity,  that  he  will 

be  at  the  where  he  will  attend  to  those 

wishing  to  consult  him  in  regard  to  their  health, 
and,  as  his  practice  is  unlike  all  other  medical  prac- 
tices, it  is  necessary  to  say  that  he  gives  no  medi- 
cines and  makes  no  outicard  applications,  but  simply 
sits  down  by  the  patients,  tells  them  their  feelings, 
and  what  they  think  is  their  disease.  If  the  pa- 
tients admit  that  he  tells  them  their  feelings,  etc., 
then  this  explanation  is  the  cure;  and,  if  he  succeeds 
in  correcting  their  error,  he  changes  the  fluid  of  the 
system  and  establishes  the  truth  or  health.  The 
Truth  is  the  Cure.  This  mode  of  practice  applies 
to  all  cases.  If  no  explanation  is  given,  no  charge 
is  made,  for  no  effect  is  produced.  His  opinion 
without  an  explanation  is  useless,  for  it  contains  no 
knowledge,  and  would  be  like  other  medical  opin- 
ions, worse  than  none.  This  error  gives  rise  to  all 
kinds  of  quackery,  not  only  among  regular  physi- 
cians, but  those  whose  aim  is  to  deceive  people  by 
pretending  to  cure  all  diseases.     The  sick  are  anx- 


42  Christian  Science 

ious  to  get  well  and  they  apply  to  these  persons, 
supposing  them  to  be  honest  and  friendly,  whereas 
they  are  made  to  believe  they  are  very  sick  and 
something  mnst  be  done  ere  it  is  too  late.  Five  or 
ten  dollars  is  then  paid,  for  the  cure  of  some  disease 
they  never  had  nor  ever  would  have  but  for  the 
wrong  impressions  received  from  these  quacks,  or 
robbers,  (as  they  might  be  called),  for  it  is  the 
worst  kind  of  robbery,  tho'  sanctioned  by  law.  Now, 
if  they  will  only  look  at  the  secret  of  this  descrip- 
tion, they  will  find  it  is  for  their  own  selfish  objects 
— to  sell  their  medicines.  Herein  consists  their 
shrewdness! — to  impress  patients  with  a  wrong 
idea,  namely — that  they  have  some  disease.  This 
makes  them  nervous  and  creates  in  their  minds  a 
disease  that  otherwise  would  never  have  been 
thought  of.  Wherefore  he  says  to  such,  never  con- 
sult a  quack;  you  not  only  lose  your  money,  but 
your  health. 

He  gives  no  opinion,  therefore  you  lose  nothing. 
If  patients  feel  pain  they  know  it,  and  if  he  de- 
scribes their  pain  he  feels  it,  and  in  his  explanation 
lies  the  cure.  Patients,  of  course,  have  some  opin- 
ion as  to  what  causes  pain — he  has  none,  therefore 
the  disagreement  lies  not  in  the  pain,  but  in  the 
cause  of  the  pain.  He  has  the  advantage  of  patients, 
for  it  is  very  easy  to  convince  them  that  he  had  no 
pain  before  he  sat  down  by  them.  After  this  it  be- 
comes his  duty  to  prove  to  them  the  cause  of  their 
trouble.  This  can  only  be  explained  to  patients, 
for  which  explanation  his  charge  is  dollars. 

If  necessary  to  see  them  more  than  once 
dollars.     This  has  been  his  mode  of  practice  for  the 


The  Source  of  its  Ideas  43 

last  seventeen  years.  For  the  past  eight  years  he 
has  given  no  medicines  nor  made  any  outward 
applications. 

There  are  many  who  pretend  to  practise  as  he 
does,  but  when  a  person  while  in  "  a  trance,"  claims 
any  power  from  the  spirits  of  the  departed,  and 
recommends  any  kind  of  medicine  to  be  taken  in- 
ternally or  applied  externally,  beware!  believe  them 
not,  "  for  by  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.'' 

But  besides  the  Quimby  scrap-book  there  is 
another  confirmation  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  estimate 
of  1862.  It  is  found  in  a  book  pubhshed  in 
1872,  three  years  before  Science  and  Health 
first  appeared  and  the  Christian  Science  or- 
ganisation was  formed,  and  while  Mrs.  Eddy 
was  still  paying  glad  tributes  to  her  master. 
The  book  bears  the  title  Mental  Medicine.  Its 
author  was  Dr.  W.  F.  Evans,  a  patient  under 
Quimby  a  few  months  after  Mrs.  Eddy.  Like 
Mr.  Dresser,  Dr.  Evans  was  a  man  of  rare 
character  and  considerable  ability.  Quimby 
won  his  confidence  by  curing  him  of  a  serious 
disease  and  he  won  Quimby's  by  his  native 
worth.  If  Quimby  had  been  looking  in  Mrs. 
Eddy's  direction,  and  if  he  was  her  pupil  rather 
than  she  his,  as  she  professes,  Dr.  Evans,  keen 
as  he  was,  would  have  had  some  reason  to  sus- 
pect it. 


44  Christian  Science 

This  is  his  description  of  Quimby  as  a 
healer : 

There  is  profound  philosophy  underlying  the 
cures  effected  by  Christ,  and  a  distinct  school  of 
medicine  may  be  erected  upon  it.  One  of  the  marked 
characteristics  of  the  system  is  the  discarding  of 
all  drugs  and  chemical  agencies,  and  the  placing 
sole  reliance  on  psychical  forces  and  remedies.  It 
recognises  the  supreme  controlling  influence  of  the 
mind  over  the  body,  the  inner  over  the  outward  man, 
both  in  health  and  disease.  The  body  seems  to  have 
been  viewed  by  him  not  as  the  real  selfhood,  but  as 
only  the  shadow  of  the  soul,  the  inner  life  of  man. 
It  corresponds  to  or  echoes  the  states  and  movements 
of  the  interior  nature.  Disease  is  not  so  much  a 
mere  physical  derangement,  in  its  primary  princi- 
ple, as  it  is  an  abnormal  mental  condition,  an  in- 
harmony  of  the  psychical  element  and  force — a 
wrong  belief,  a  falsity.  This  fixed  belief,  that  was 
viewed  as  the  root  of  the  morbid  outward  condition, 
is  not  a  mere  intellectual  act,  and  has  no  reference 
to  a  creed,  but  represents  an  inward  condition,  the 
state  of  the  inner  man,  what  the  German  writers  on 
the  philosophy  of  mind  denominate  the  interior  con- 
sciousness. This  is  the  governing  element,  the 
controlling  principle.  The  bodily  state  is  the  index 
to  it.  "  As  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he." 
Disease  being  in  its  root  a  wrong  belief,  in  the  sense 
explained  above,  change  that  belief  and  we  cure  the 
disease.  By  faith  we  are  thus  made  whole.  There 
is  a  law  here  the  world  will  sometime  understand 
and  use  in  the  cure  of  the  diseases  that  afflict  man- 


The  Source  of  its  Ideas  45 

kind.  The  late  Dr.  Quimby  of  Portland,  Maine,  one 
of  the  most  successful  healers  of  this  or  any  age, 
embraced  this  view  of  the  nature  of  disease,  and  by 
a  long  succession  of  most  remarkable  cures,  effected 
by  psychopathic  remedies,  at  the  same  time  proved 
the  truth  of  the  theory  and  the  efficiency  of  that 
mode  of  treatment.  Had  he  lived  in  a  remote  age 
or  country,  the  wonderful  facts  which  occurred  in 
his  practice  would  have  now  been  deemed  either 
mythical  or  miraculous.  He  seemed  to  reproduce 
the  wonders  of  the  Gospel  history.  But  all  this  was 
only  an  exhibition  of  the  force  of  suggestion,  or  the 
action  of  the  law  of  faith,  over  a  patient  in  the  im- 
pressible condition.24 

Into  the  vexed  question  of  the  Quimby 
manuscripts,  which  through  the  courtesy  of 
Mr.  George  A.  Quimby  I  have  read,  there  is 
no  need  to  enter.  The  evidence  akeady  pre- 
sented is  sufficient  to  acquaint  the  reader  with 
the  general  principle  that  underlay  Quimby's 
views.  The  manuscript  which  Mrs.  Eddy 
used  in  the  late  sixties  and  the  early  seventies 
and  regularly  said  was  Quimby's  is  in  com- 
plete agreement  with  the  Quimby  theory.  An 
unbroken  line  of  witnesses  from  1862  to  1875 
all  testify  that  Mrs.  Eddy  was  in  those  years 
continuously  making  generous  acknowledg- 
ment that  she  got  her  central  principle  from 
Quimby  and  that  the  Mrs.  Eddy  of  1862  rather 
than  the  Mrs.  Eddy  of  1888  is  to  be  believed. 


\/ 


46  Christian  Science 

Even  if  George  A.  Quimby  had  in  1887  ac- 
cepted Mrs.  Eddy's  proposition  to  pubhsh  at 
her  expense  the  Quimby  manuscripts  on  con- 
dition that  she  be  allowed  to  determine  whether 
they  were  Quimby's  thoughts  or  hers,  the  sit- 
uation would  not  have  been  changed.  Even 
if  the  United  States  Court,  in  1883,  did  decide 
that  Arens's  book  was  an  infringement  on  the 
copyright  of  Science  and  Health,  the  deeper 
question  of  whether  Quimby  or  Mrs.  Eddy 
was  the  author  of  what  were  plainly  Quimby's 
views  when  Mrs.  Eddy  knew  him  was  in  no 
way  touched.^^     It  could  not  be. 

Mrs.  Eddy  stands  or  falls  by  her  own 
/words.  The  contradiction  between  1862  and 
1888  can  only  be  explained  away  when  wit- 
nesses are  found  covering  the  years  from  1856 
to  1875,  to  offset  the  testimony  of  the  Quimby 
scrap-book,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dresser,  Mrs. 
Crosby,  Mr.  George  A.  Quimby,  Mrs.  Wal- 
cott,  the  Wentworths,  Mr.  Kennedy,  Dr. 
Evans,  and  Mr.  Spofford.  The  contradiction 
in  itself  disqualifies  Mrs.  Eddy  to  testify  at  all 
in  the  unusual  circumstances.  Who  then  will 
come  to  the  support  of  Mrs.  Eddy  of  1888 
and  1907  against  Mrs.  Eddy  of  1862? 

The  Committee  on  Publication  manifestly 
can  not.     Christian  Science,  though  Quimby 


The  Source  of  its  Ideas  47 

had  already  used  the  name,  had  not  been  born. 
The  committee,  therefore,  was  not  in  exist- 
ence. In  a  communication  addressed  to  me 
May  3,  1907,  the  committee  claims  that 
Quimby  "  never  knew  or  practised  a  method  of 
giving  a  mental  treatment.  He  was  a  mag- 
netic practitioner  and  a  mesmerist  and  never 
was  anything  else.  .  .  .  His  practice  did 
not  differ  from  that  of  many  other  magnetic 
practitioners  of  his  time.  All  this  I  can 
prove  by  conclusive,  indisputable,  documen- 
tary evidence."  -^  But  when.  May  5,  I  went 
by  appointment  to  Boston  to  make  a 
careful  study  of  the  evidence,  I  was  sadly  dis- 
appointed. If  the  committee  has  such  evi- 
dence, the  public,  which  is  passing  on  the 
Quimby  issue  in  these  days,  has  a  right  to  see 
it  and  to  weigh  it  carefully.  Every  day's  de- 
lay is  hurting  the  Mrs.  Eddy,  of  1888  and 
1907,  and  confirming  the  Mrs.  Eddy  of  1862. 
Still  insistent  in  my  search  for  witnesses 
who  can  speak  for  Mrs.  Eddy  of  1888  and 
1907  against  JNIrs.  Eddy  of  1862,  whom  all  the 
witnesses  now  known  support,  the  Committee 
on  Publication  earnestly  advised  an  interview 
with  the  author  of  the  Human  Life  series.  But 
when,  on  June  13th,  I  went  to  Boston  by  ap- 
pointment   for   this    interview    I    once    more 


48  Christian  Science 

suffered  disappointment.  The  author,  Hke 
the  Committee  on  Publication,  has  apparently 
found  no  witnesses;  and  since,  as  she  had  al- 
ready written  me,  her  "  information  is  exhaus- 
tive," it  begins  to  look  as  though  the  only  wit- 
nesses who  can  be  found  to  refute  Mrs.  Eddy 
of  1862  are  those  who  never  even  knew  her 
then.-^ 

While  we  await  the  witnesses  we  need,  a 
brief  comparison  of  what  we  know  was 
Quimby's  with  Mrs.  Eddy's  masterpiece  may 
be  worth  the  while.  The  deadly  parallel  does 
not  always  prove  its  case.  There  may  be  simi- 
larity of  view  without  plagiarism.  But  when 
similarity  shades  off  into  practical  identity  in 
thought  and  word  alike  there  is  but  one  con- 
clusion to  be  reached.  The  passages  in  paral- 
lel speak  for  themselves  and  from  them  there 
is  no  appeal  conceivable. 

DR.  QUIMBY.28  MRS.  EDDY. 

1.  "  Christian  Science."       1.  '^  Christian  Science." 

2.  "  Science  of  Health."       2.  "Science        and 

Health." 

3.  "  Matter   has   no   in-       3.  "  Matter  cannot  pro- 

telligence.  duce  mind." 

4.  "  Matter  is  an  error."       4.  "  Matter  is  a  mortal 

error." 


The  Source  of  its  Ideas 


49 


5.  "  Understanding      is 

God." 

6.  "  Truth  is  God." 

7.  "  God  is  Principle." 

8.  "  Wisdom,  Love,  and 

Truth  are  the  Prin- 
ciple." 


9.  "  All     sciences     are 
part  of  God." 

10.  ^'  The    idea,    man    is 

the  highest — hence 
the  image  of  God." 

11.  "  Error    is    sickness. 

Truth   is   health." 

12.  "The    patient's    dis- 

ease is  in  his  dis- 
belief. ...  If  you 
are  not  afraid  to 
face  the  error  and 
argue  it  down, 
then  you  can  heal 
the  sick." 


5.  "  Understanding  is  a 

quality  of  God." 

6.  "Truth  is  God." 

7.  "God  is  Principle." 

8.  "  Adhere      to     .    .    . 

Principle,  and  fol- 
low its  behests, 
abiding  steadily  in 
Wisdom,  Love,  and 
Truth." 

9.  "  All    science    is    of 

God." 

10.  "  Man    was    and    is 

God's  idea." 

11.  "  Sickness  is  part  of 

the  error  which 
Truth   casts  out." 

12.  "  Science     not     only 

reveals  the  origin 
of  all  disease  as 
wholly  mental,  but 
it  also  declares 
that  all  disease  is 
cured  by  mind." 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  FOUNDER  OF  THE  FAITH 

The  World  when  she  was  Born — Childhood — Environment 
and  Education — First  Marriage  in  1843 — Widowhood 
and  Invalidism — Second  Marriage  in  1853 — Visit  in 
1862  to  Quimby— His  Healing  System— Mrs.  Eddy's 
Great  Mistake— The  "Final  Revelation"  in  1866— 
Separation  from  her  Second  Husband  and  Divorce 
— Professional  Visiting — Partnership  in  Lynn  with 
Richard  Kennedy  in  1870 — Established  as  a  Leader — 
Relationship  with  D.  H.  Spofford — The  docile  Mr. 
Eddy — Third  Marriage — Christian  Science  organised 
in  1875 — Removal  in  1881  to  Boston — Court  and  Cabi- 
net— College  and  Church — To  Concord  in  1889 — 
Christian  Science  To-day — An  Astonishing  Autoc- 
racy— The  Manual — The  Modern  Mona  Lisa — Her 
Virtues  and  her  Faults. 

IWlRS.  EDDY  is  no  longer  young.  She 
-^  '  ^  was  born  the  summer  of  Napoleon's 
death,  in  1821.  She  was  closer  that  year  to  the 
American  Revolution  and  the  War  of  1812 
than  babies  born  this  year  are  to  the  Civil  War 
and  our  recent  war  with  Spain. 

50 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  51 

Always  a  New  Englander  in  point  of  view, 
Mrs.  Eddy  grew  up  with  New  England.  The 
prestige  of  Virginia  was  waning.  New  York's 
was  yet  to  be.  New  England  w^as  generat- 
ing for  the  entire  land  ideas  in  politics  and  in 
religion,  and  was  indulging  to  the  full  her  na- 
tive penchant  for  the  mystical. 

Clairvoyance,  spiritualism,  mesmerism,  and 
other  psychical  phenomena  were  in  the  air. 
There  was  discussion  of  them  on  the  lecture 
platform  and  at  every  cross-road.  Mesmer 
was  dead  but  mesmerists  were  everywhere  in 
evidence.^  Charles  Poyen  was  talking  in 
many  places  where  Mrs.  Eddy  later  lived, 
about  the  "  Power  of  Mind  over  Matter,"  and 
was  making  ready  for  the  publication  in  1837 
of  his  book  on  Animal  Magnetism  in  New 
England,  What  Braid  had  done  in  England 
to  make  mesmerism  popular.  Grimes  was  do- 
ing in  New  England,  and  Dods  and  Stone 
were  proving  his  apt  pupils.  Andrew  Jack- 
son Davis,  also,  was  astonishing  audiences  by 
his  mesmeric  performances. 

At  Canterbury,  five  miles  from  the  place 
where  Mrs.  Eddy  lived  from  her  fifteenth  to 
her  twenty-second  year,  the  Shakers,  whom 
Mrs.  Eddy's  brother's  preceptor-at-law, 
Frankhn  Pierce,  later  President  of  the  United 


52  Christian  Science 

States,  defended  in  the  courts,  were  ever 
thinking  of  their  extraordinary^  leader.  She 
had  died  long  years  before,  but  they  were  still 
speaking  of  her  as  the  "  Mother,"  "  the  female 
principle  of  God,"  "  the  female  Christ  ";  using 
such  terms  as  "  Father-Mother  God,"  "  the 
Church  of  Christ,"  the  "Mother  Church"; 
and  refusing  to  pray  audibly  and  setting 
celibacy  high  above  the  marriage  state. 

Mrs.  Eddy  comes  of  good  New  England 
stock.  On  both  sides  she  has  a  pedigree  of 
thrift,  honesty,  and  intelligence  above  the 
average.  Her  father,  Mark  Baker,  was  able, 
upright,  conscientious,  and  fearless,  though 
dogmatic,  high-tempered,  and  hard-fisted. 
Accounts  agree  in  making  her  mother,  nee 
Abigail  Bernard  Ambrose,  capable,  gentle, 
and  unselfish.^ 

Born  at  Bow,  New  Hampshire,  July  16, 
1821,  the  youngest  in  a  family  of  six,  Mary  A. 
Morse  Baker  proved  to  be  the  only  member  of 
her  family  who  achieved  national  distinction. 
Her  brother  Albert,  nominated  for  Congress 
in  1841,  might  have  proved  a  worthy  second 
had  he  not  died  at  the  age  of  thirty-one  before 
he  was  elected.  The  loneliness  of  a  childhood 
spent  on  the  ancestral  farm  was  accentuated 
by  delicacy  of  health  which  saved  her  from  the 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  53 

drudgery  that  usually  falls  to  the  New  Eng- 
land girl  brought  up  in  the  country,  gave  her 
time  to  read  such  books  as  were  at  hand,  and 
brought  out  both  the  defects  and  the  virtues  of 
her  character. 

In  1836  Mark  Baker  sold  his  farm  and 
moved  to  town,  Sanbornton  Bridge, — now 
Tilton.  Life  was  larger  and  more  interesting 
at  "  The  Bridge."  JNlary  Baker,  then  fifteen, 
blossomed  out  at  once  into  the  village  belle. 
Of  medium  height,  slim  and  graceful,  ex- 
quisitely moulded  even  to  her  hands  and  feet, 
features  regular  and  refined,  big  blue  eyes 
which  could  flash  black  on  occasion,  the  fresh 
bloom  of  a  pure  complexion,  an  abundance  of 
bright  brown  hair,  escaping  in  ringlets  from 
beneath  her  bonnet,  always  gowned  in  good 
taste  and  yet  mindful  of  observers,  Mary 
Baker  w^as  the  cynosure  of  every  eye  as  she 
came  tripping  every  Sunday  into  church. 

Already  conscious  of  the  power  which  has 
given  her  a  distinctive  place  among  w^omen, 
she  invariably  took  the  centre  of  the  stage. 
She  expected  and  accepted  the  peculiar  con- 
sideration given  to  her  instinctively  by  every- 
body in  the  family  and  friendly  circle.  When 
her  sweetness  and  her  charm,  however,  were 
not  adequate  to  win  the  influence  desired,  she 


54  Christian  Science 

knew  how  to  challenge  and  command.  High- 
strung  and  hysterical,  she  knew  when  to  em- 
ploy the  arts  of  the  neurotic.  Imperious  and 
masterful  in  girlhood  as  in  womanhood,  she 
always  played  the  game  of  life  to  win.  In- 
dependent in  her  judgments  even  then,  she 
won  exemption  from  belief  in  predestination, 
when  at  the  age  of  seventeen  she  joined  the 
Tilton  Congregational  Church. 

Schools  are  for  the  average  and  Mary  Baker 
was  no  average  girl.  The  stories  of  her 
school-days  are  the  stories  many  people  tell 
about  the  school-days  of  extraordinary  people. 
Her  schoolmates  found  her  indolent  and  indif- 
ferent to  the  routine  to  which  they  yielded 
without  murmuring.  Ill-health  and  day- 
dreaming are  not  conducive  to  the  plodding 
of  the  school  room.  Her  father,  therefore, 
wisely  kept  her  "  much  out  of  school "  she 
says,  and  without  hurt  to  her.^ 

One  may  be  permitted,  however,  not  to  ac- 
cept too  literally  her  statement  that  she  was 
studying  those  years,  under  her  brother  Al- 
bert, Natural  Philosophy,  Logic,  Moral 
Science,  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Latin.  There 
is  nowhere  in  her  writings  substantial  evidence 
that  she  was  well  grounded  in  these  subjects. 
Real  learning  does  not  vanish  like  a  dream  as 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  55 

Mrs.  Eddy  says  hers  did  when  she  discovered 
Christian  Science.  If  one  is  obhged  to  draw 
any  inference  as  to  her  schoohng  from  the 
facts  in  evidence  it  will,  perhaps,  be  not  unlike 
that  which  her  schoolmates  stated  in  the  homely 
words:  "  JNIary  Baker  completed  her  educa- 
tion when  she  had  finished  Smith's  grammar 
and  had  reached  long  division  in  arithmetic."  * 

Marriage  was  inevitable.  The  craving  for 
the  new  experience  is  insatiate  in  a  person- 
ality as  highly  sensitised  as  Mary  Baker's 
was.  And  so  when  George  Washington  Glo- 
ver, big,  kind-hearted,  and  industrious,  came 
a-courting  she  did  not  say  him  nay.  They 
were  married  in  December,  1843,  and  went  to 
South  Carolina  to  live,  where  he  died  six 
months  later  of  yellow  fever.  Helped  north 
by  the  Free  Masons  because  her  husband  was 
a  Mason,  JNIrs.  Glover  gave  birth  the  next 
September  in  her  father's  house  in  Tilton  to  a 
son  whom  she  named  for  his  father. 

The  years  that  followed  are  too  sad  and 
bleak  for  full  description.  The  widowed 
mother,  just  past  twenty-three,  was  lapsing 
from  frailness  into  an  invalidism  which  was 
not  to  lift  till  she  was  almost  fifty.  Her 
baby  fell  into  the  hands  of  kind  but  ignorant 
care-takers,  grew  up  without  education,  and 


56  Christian  Science 

has  seldom  seen  his  mother  since  his  babyhood. 
Her  mother  was  old,  her  father  past  his  prime. 
There  was  no  place  for  her  at  home,  and  her 
brothers  and  sisters,  with  homes  of  their  own, 
were  not  inclined  to  make  one  for  a  sister  who 
in  spite  of  many  native  gifts  lacked  the  grace 
of  adaptation.  Mrs.  Glover  was  discouraged. 
She  made  one  short-lived  effort  to  support  her- 
self by  teaching.  Then  after  her  father's  sec- 
ond marriage  she  entered  on  a  sad  and  sordid 
life  of  drifting  which  continued  till  Richard 
Kennedy  came  to  her  relief  in  1870  and  by  his 
industry  and  generosity  made  her  for  the  first 
time  in  her  life  economically  independent. 

She  lived  with  one  relative  for  a  time,  and 
then  passed  on  to  the  next  who  would  receive 
her.  Poor  relation  as  she  was  in  every  home, 
she  acted  steadily  as  though  her  presence  was 
a  privilege  to  be  impressed  on  those  with 
whom  she  lived.  She  took  the  best  they  had 
to  give  as  though  it  were  her  right.  She  had 
the  family  life  adjusted  to  her  nerves.  She 
made  herself  the  centre  of  each  situation.  She 
gave  the  servants  extra  trouble  if  there  were 
servants  in  the  house.  If  there  were  not,  she 
let  it  sometimes  fall  upon  a  hostess  old  enough 
to  be  her  mother. 
/     If  the  thought  of  helping  on,  as  others  do 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  57 

who  fall  into  her  plight,  ever  crossed  her  mind, 
she  carefully  safeguarded  it  from  j)ractical  ex- 
pression. To  spend  your  time  writing  books 
and  entertaining  callers  while  your  hostess 
plays  the  drudge,  to  queen  it  at  the  sewing 
circle  and  the  "  lodge  "  when  there  are  duties 
to  be  done  in  the  home  where  you  are  staying, 
does  not  tend  to  the  perpetuation  of  the  wel- 
come, however  gladly  it  may  at  first  have  been 
given.  And  so  in  all  those  bitter  years,  which 
ran  on  from  1843  to  1870,  JNIrs.  Eddy  was  en- 
gaged almost  continuously  in  wearing  out  her 
w^elcome  and  in  saying  good-bye  to  the  past. 

She  sometimes  received  attention  from  the 
other  sex.  She  had  to  have  it.  Admiration  was 
the  breath  of  life  to  her.  She  touched  at  last 
the  heart  of  an  itinerant  dentist.  Dr.  Daniel 
Patterson,  who  was  rough  but  genial,  and 
when  he  gave  her  sympathy  in  her  forlornness 
and  her  invalidism,  she  married  him  in  1853. 

But  her  second  marriage  did  not  end  her 
troubles.  It  prolonged  them.  One  who 
knew  her  husband  tells  me,  "  Dr.  Patterson 
was  too  slow  for  her."  He  was  not  a  good 
provider.  He  could  not  always  earn  a  living 
as  a  dentist  and  so  he  sometimes  practised 
homoeopathy  and  even  turned  his  hand  to  run- 
ning a  saw-mill.     They  lived  for  years  a  pre- 


58  Christian  Science 

carious  existence,  moving  from  place  to  place, 
— Tilton,  Franklin,  North  Groton,  Rumney. 
Incompatibility  of  disposition  and  irreconcil- 
able standards  led  in  1862  to  a  separation,  when 
Dr.  Patterson  went  off  to  the  Civil  War  as  a 
spectator,  only  to  be  captured  by  the  Confed- 
erates and  to  fall  into  Libby  prison.  After 
his  return  some  two  years  later,  there  was  an- 
other unsuccessful  effort  made  in  Lynn  to  live 
together,  follow^ed  by  final  separation  in  1866 
and  by  divorce  in  1873. 

After  the  last  separation  her  plight  was 
worse  than  ever.  She  was  now  estranged 
from  practically  all  of  her  own  flesh  and  blood. 
She  had  lost  one  husband  too  soon  after  mar- 
riage for  assurance  that  the  marriage  would 
have  proved  a  happy  and  successful  one.  She 
had  lost  another  husband  through  the  utter 
failure  of  the  marriage.  She  was  the  mother 
of  a  son  now  grown  to  man's  estate  but  whom 
she  had  not  seen  for  years  and  in  whom  she 
seemed  to  have  so  little  interest  as  to  perplex 
her  good  friend  Mrs.  Crosby,  busy  and  con- 
tented with  her  babies.  She  had  few  friends. 
They  invariably  have  few  who  count  friend- 
ship a  field  for  exploitation.  She  had  no  plan 
in  life  except  apparently  to  eat  bread  that  she 
had  not  earned  and  would  not  help  to  bake. 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  59 

She  had  no  point  of  view  to  insure  straight 
looking  out  on  life  and  no  philosophy  to  lift 
her  out  of  self.  That  she  was  to  find  in  her 
search  for  health. 

All  the  years  of  her  domestic  infelicity  and 
chronic  invalidism  JNIrs.  Eddy  was  thinking, 
she  now  says,  of  the  possibilities  of  spiritual 
release  from  pain.  After  Dr.  Patterson  w^ent 
south  in  the  summer  of  1862,  she  made  a  visit 
to  Portland,  Maine,  a  nervous  wreck,  attracted 
by  the  stories  of  the  "  wonderful  cures  "  a  cer- 
tain Dr.  Quimby  had  been  making  without 
drugs.^ 

Phineas  Parkhurst  Quimby  was  then  a  man 
of  sixty.  Son  of  a  blacksmith  of  scanty  mearns, 
he  received  but  Httle  schooling.  Appren- 
ticed as  a  boy  to  a  clock-maker,  he  early  showed 
those  keen  powers  of  observation,  inventive- 
ness, and  originality  of  thought  which  made 
him  a  marked  man  his  whole  life  through.  A 
truth-lover  and  truth-seeker  by  instinct,  he 
never  took  opinions  ready-made.  He  read 
much.  The  Bible  was  ever  in  his  hand,  and 
sometimes  Berkeley.  He  was  well  informed 
on  current  topics,  thought  clearly,  and  was  apt 
to  put  his  thoughts  on  paper. 

Such  a  man  was  certain  to  be  interested  in 
the   occultism  which  in  his  young   manhood 


6o  Christian  Science 

swept  through  New  England.  He  followed 
Charles  Poyen  about  from  place  to  place  and 
learned  how  to  do  his  mesmeric  tricks.  In 
the  forties,  "  Park  Quimby  "  and  his  subject 
Lucius  Burkmar,  became  household  words  in 
many  a  New  England  and  Canadian  village.^ 

Quimby,  with  his  love  for  man,  soon  grad- 
uated out  of  the  spectacular  into  the  bene- 
ficent and  turned  his  mesmerism  to  the  good 
account  of  healing.  But,  like  Bernheim  of 
Nancy  and  Dubois  of  Berne  in  more  modern 
times,  Quimby  by  and  by  discovered  that  in 
suggestion  lies  the  secret  of  all  mental  healing, 
and  that  its  exaggerated  forms,  as  seen  in 
mesmerism  and  hypnotism,  are  seldom  needed 
to  effect  a  cure.  Long  before  Mrs.  Eddy 
came  his  way,  he  was  leaving  mesmerism  be- 
hind and,  as  one  of  his  old  friends  wrote  to  me, 
June  16,  1907,  when  Mrs.  Eddy  knew  Quimby 
"  nothing  was  more  apt  to  excite  him  than  the 
suggestion  that  there  was  mystery  in  his 
theory  or  practice." 

At  least  three  years  before  Mrs.  Eddy 
sought  his  help,  he  was  beginning  to  reduce 
his  theory  of  healing  to  writing.  With  his 
own  hand  he  put  his  thoughts  on  paper.  He 
had  the  clerical  assistance  of  the  Misses  Ware, 
daughters  of  a  judge  of  the  United   States 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  6i 

Admiralty  Court,  and  of  his  son,  George  A. 
Quimby.  JVIr.  Horatio  W.  Dresser,  son  of 
]\Ir.  J.  A.  Dresser,  who  was  not  only  one  of 
Quimby's  patients  before  Mrs.  Eddy  came  to 
him  in  1862  but  also  often  explained  Quimby 's 
theory  to  Mrs.  Eddy,  several  years  ago  talked 
out  the  matter  with  all  those  who  gave  Quimby 
clerical  assistance  in  his  writing  and  himself 
later  copied  several  hundred  pages,  which  on 
his  father's  and  his  mother's  word,  as  well  as 
on  that  of  George  A.  Quimby  and  of  the 
Misses  Ware,  he  was  assured  was  Quimby's 
intellectual  production. 

Mr.  George  A.  Quimby  thus  describes  his 
father's  way  of  working:  "From  that  time 
(1859)  he  began  to  write  out  his  ideas,  which 
practice  he  continued  until  his  death,  the  arti- 
cles now  being  in  the  possession  of  the  writer 
of  this  sketch.  The  original  copy  he  would 
give  to  the  Misses  Ware ;  and  it  would  be  read 
to  him  by  them ;  and,  if  he  suggested  any  alter- 
ation, it  would  be  made,  after  which  it  would 
be  copied  either  by  the  Misses  Ware  or  the 
writer  of  this,  and  then  reread  to  him,  that  he 
might  see  that  all  was  just  as  he  intended  it. 
Not  even  the  most  trival  word  or  the  construc- 
tion of  a  sentence  would  be  changed  without 
consulting  him.    He  was  given  to  repetition, 


62  Christian  Science 

and  it  was  with  difficulty  that  he  could  he  in- 
duced to  have  a  repeated  sentence  or  phrase 
stricken  out,  as  he  would  say,  '  If  that  idea  is  a 
good  one,  and  true,  it  will  do  no  harm  to  have 
it  in  two  or  three  times.'  He  believed  in  the 
hammering  process,  and  in  throwing  an  idea 
or  truth  at  the  reader  till  it  would  be  firmly 
fixed  in  his  mind." 

Between  1859  and  1866,  when  Dr.  Quimby 
died,  he  produced  in  this  way — so  character- 
istic of  literary  workers  in  these  typewriter 
days — ten  volumes  of  manuscript.  Much  of 
this — "  over  eight  hundred  closely  written 
pages  covering  one  hundred  and  twenty  sub- 
jects "  ^ — was  written  before  Mrs.  Eddy 
paid  him  her  first  visit  in  the  autumn  of  1862. 
She  probably  never  saw  a  page  of  the  original 
manuscript.  The  copy  which  she  made  in 
1862  of  the  first  volume  was  a  copy  of  a  copy 
made  by  Julius  A.  Dresser  and  loaned  by  him 
to  Mrs.  Eddy.  Her  claim  in  later  years  that 
the  Quimby  manuscripts  were  her  own  manu- 
scripts which  she  had  left  with  Quimby  years 
before  ^  can  be  established  only  by  discredit- 
ing all  the  other  witnesses  and  by  denying  facts 
themselves.  Her  unexpected  assertion  that 
certain  quotations  from  Quimby's  manu- 
scripts "  were  my  own  words,  as  near  as  I  can 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  63 

recollect  them,"  is  offset  by  the  statement  of 
Horatio  W.  Dresser,  who  like  the  author  is 
familiar,  as  JNIrs.  Eddy  is  not,  with  the  Quimby 
manuscripts  in  general,  that  the  words  in  ques- 
tion "  were  from  an  article  written  by  Dr. 
Quimby  in  1863,  copied  by  myself  into  a  book, 
which  Mrs.  Eddy  never  saw,  from  the  manu- 
script of  Dr.  Quimby's  writings,  copies  from 
the  original  not  a  page  of  which  Mrs.  Eddy 
ever  saw." 

To  doubt  in  the  light  of  Quimby's  history, 
in  the  well-known  circumstances  that  sur- 
rounded the  production  of  his  manuscripts,  in 
the  face  of  all  the  witnesses  who  have  testified 
to  the  development  of  his  healing  system,  in 
spite  of  the  words  of  Horatio  W.  Dresser,  who 
found,  as  has  the  author  of  this  book,  hundreds 
of  pages  of  manuscript  written  before  Mrs. 
Edd}^  ever  went  to  Dr.  Quimbs^  containing 
"  a  very  original  and  complete  statement  of  the 
data  and  theory  of  mental  healing,"  that  Quim- 
by had  a  healing  system  of  his  own  for  which 
he  owed  no  debt  to  Mrs.  Eddy,  is  to  prove  one- 
self unappreciative  of  the  psychology  of  in- 
tellectual production  and  literary  expression. 

To  dispel  the  morbid  fancies  of  the  moody 
Cowper,  Lady  Austen  once  told  him  the  old 
story  of  the  London  citizen  riding  to  Edmon- 


^4  Christian  Science 

ton,  and  ever  since  that  day  John  Gilpin, 
started  by  the  word  of  Cowper,  has  been  gal- 
loping through  the  thoroughfare  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  verse,  and  Lady  Austen  never  once 
claimed  any  credit  in  the  matter. 

Dr.  Quimby  had  started  on  his  mental 
healing  course  years  before  his  most  dis- 
tinguished patient  ever  heard  of  him.  The 
most  she  ever  did  for  him  who  did  so  much  for 
her,  was  to  give  to  him  while  he  was  alive  the 
appreciation  precious  beyond  words  to  every 
doctor,  and  after  he  was  dead  fulsome  verse  in 
which  she  made  "  sackcloth  clothe  the  sun  and 
day  grow  night."  And  then,  as  years  went  by 
and  ambition  grew  with  what  it  fed  on,  she 
began  to  claim  first  that  she  had  started 
Quimby  on  his  course,  then  that  she,  not  he,  had 
planned  the  course,  and  last,  that  he  had  not 
taken  any  course  at  all  of  mental  healing,  but 
was  a  mere  mesmerist.  And  only  in  the  high 
noon  of  this  year's  publicity  has  truth  crushed 
to  earth  risen  once  again  to  the  defence  of 
Quimby  and  the  depreciation  of  his  one-time 
friend  and  pupil-patient. 

When  Mrs.  Eddy,  then  Mrs.  Patterson,  was 
helped  up  the  stairs  in  October,  1862,  to  Dr. 
Quimby 's  office,  she  was  "  a  frail  shadow  of  a 
woman."  The  beauty  of  her  early  woman- 
hood was   gone.'*^      Pale,   emaciated,   shabby, 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith         65 

the  stamp  of  poverty  as  well  as  illness  on  her 
face  and  form,  her  first  request  of  Quimby 
was  to  assist  her  to  secure  an  inexpensive 
boarding-place.  Three  weeks  later  she  left 
him,  a  well  woman, — well  in  body  and  in  mind. 
Quimby  had  cured  her  of  her  nervous  trouble, 
but  that  was  the  least  that  he  had  done  for  her. 
He  had  given  her  the  idea  which  was  to  domi- 
nate her  whole  life,  the  rock  on  which  she  was 
by  and  by  to  build  her  church,  against  which 
she  has  been  wont  ever  since  stoutly  to  assert 
"  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail." 

What  she  had  ever  heard  before  of  the  idea 
we  may  not  know.  Mrs.  Eddy  is  the  only 
witness  who  can  testify  and  she  contradicts 
herself.  She  told  the  "  Masters,"  August 
14th,  in  the  recent  lawsuit,  that  the  idea  came 
to  her  before  her  eighteenth  year.  But  she 
has  in  other  instances  borne  different  testi- 
mony. The  one  thing  we  surely  know  is  this : 
She  had  at  last  a  great  idea.  It  came  to  her 
in  all  its  force  and  fulness  with  Quimby's 
stamp  on  it.  But  it  was  hers ;  hers  even  to  the 
repudiation — if  she  pleased — of  the  Quimby 
stamp.  Generous  to  carelessness,  scientific 
in  the  true  sense  of  claiming  no  proprietary 
right  in  any  truth  he  found,  Quimby  went  on 
his  way  in  cheerful  godliness. 

For  many  a  year  Mrs.  Eddy  seemed  to  be 


66  Christian  Science 

the  winner  in  the  so-called  Quimby  contro- 
versy. But  this  year  she  is  losing,  and  at  the 
age  of  eighty-six,  when  "  visions  that  charm 
and  bless  "  alone  should  visit  her,  Mrs.  Eddy 
has  to  face  the  ghost  of  her  ungenerosity  which 
has  enlarged  her  fame  as  founder  of  the 
Christian  Science  Church  at  the  expense  of 
her  reputation  as  a  woman.  Even  from  the 
standpoint  of  mere  policy,  it  has  been  a  mis- 
take not  to  acknowledge  in  these  later  years, 
as  she  did  in  the  earlier  ones,  the  efficient 
source  of  the  idea  on  which  she  has  erected  a 
structure  Quimby  would  never  claim  as  his, 
but  which  could  not  have  been  built  at  all  ex- 
cept on  the  foundation  laid  by  Quimby  in  the 
receptive  mind  of  Mrs.  Eddy. 

It  was  in  Lynn,  where  she  and  her  husband 
lived  a  while  before  their  final  separation,  that 
she  had  the  great  experience  from  which  in 
later  years  she  dated  her  discovery  of  Chris- 
tian Science.  Returning  February  1,  1866, 
from  the  "  lodge,"  she  slipped  and  fell  on 
the  icy  sidewalk,  sustaining  a  nervous  shock 
which  the  physician.  Dr.  A.  M.  Cushing,  at 
once  ameliorated  and  in  a  fortnight  cured. 

Mrs.  Eddy's  recollection  materially  differs 
from  her  doctor's.^^  She  thinks  she  was 
critically  ill.     The  doctor  tells  me  she  was  not 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  67 

and  he  never  said  she  was.  He  says  she  had 
sustained  a  nervous  shock,  which  every  doctor 
understands.  She  says  that  after  his  first 
visit  she  ceased  to  take  his  medicines.  He 
tells  me  that  she  told  another  story  at  the  time 
and  that  he  had  satisfying  proof  that  she  did 
follow  to  the  letter  his  directions.  She  de- 
scribes in  some  detail  how  she  depended  solely 
upon  God,  read  the  story  in  the  Bible  of  the 
healing  of  the  palsied  man  by  Jesus  Christ, 
caught  "  the  lost  chord  of  Truth,  healing,  as 
of  old,  from  the  Divine  Harmony,"  and  the 
third  day  rose  as  one  from  the  dead,  appeared 
before  the  friends  who  had  gathered  in  the  ad- 
joining room  to  say  good-bye  to  her,  and  was 
at  first  believed  to  be  an  apparition.  The 
doctor,  understanding  that  hysteria  is,  as  Char- 
cot says,  nothing  but  "  a  psychic  disease," 
would  not  have  been  surprised  had  she  ap- 
peared even  earlier  before  her  friends. 

She  had  done,  it  seemed,  forevermore  with 
doctors  and  their  drugs.  And  yet  the  August 
following  she  called  on  Dr.  Cushing  once 
again  to  treat  her  for  a  cough.  Belonging  to 
a  class  of  persons  described  by  Professor 
Miinsterberg,  who,  through  weakness  of  the 
pow^ers  of  perception,  through  inattention  due 
to  introspection,  through  misdirected  volition 


68  Christian  Science 

or  deficient  suggestibility,  or  through  some 
psychical  abnormality  to  which  Mrs.  Eddy  in 
her  neuropathic  state  must  then  have  been  li- 
able, are  unable,  even  with  the  best  intentions, 
to  recall  details  with  precision,  her  word — any 
nervous  patient's  word — cannot  count  against 
the  word  of  a  trained  diagnostician.  Dr. 
Cushing's  judgment  will  undoubtedly  be  taken 
by  the  medical  fraternity.  Mrs.  Eddy's  case 
is  a  familiar  one;  her  symptoms  are  accurately 
symptomatic  of  the  disease. 

It  was  a  wretched  life  she  lived  in  Lynn 
after  the  final  separation  from  her  husband.^^ 
She  was  physically  and  temperamentally  un- 
fit to  earn  her  living.  She  did  not  play  suc- 
cessfully the  role  of  the  professional  visitor. 
She  could  not  efface  herself  in  any  home.  She 
neither  helped  along  nor  kept  hands  off  the 
family  affairs.  She  could  not  master  the  sim- 
ple lesson,  easily  learned  by  normal  people 
who  visit  much,  of  leaving  the  family,  enlarged 
to  take  her  in,  more  closely  knit  together  be- 
cause she  had  been  in  it.  There  are  families 
which  still  feel  the  strain  she  put  upon  them 
years  ago. 

The  Russells  and  the  Newhalls  of  Lynn 
were  quit  of  her  as  soon  as  possible.  The 
Wheelers    and    the    Ellises    of    Swampscott 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  69 

passed  her  on — no  easy  task.  At  the  Crafts', 
in  East  Stoughton,  she  was  made  more  wel- 
come, but  there  too  she  brought  discord,  no 
matter  whose  the  fault.  At  the  Websters'  in 
Amesbury,  though  not  herself  perhaps  a  spirit- 
ualist, she  trained  with  spiritualists  until  they, 
too,  grew  weary  of  her  presence  and  had  re- 
sort almost  to  force  to  send  her  off.  Miss 
Sarah  Bagley  was  a  little  kinder  to  her.  But 
by  and  by  Mrs.  Patterson,  then  calling  her- 
self Mrs.  Glover,  went  to  Stoughton  and 
spent  two  years  before  1870  in  the  home  of 
Mrs.  Sally  Wentworth,  who  was  more  than 
kind  to  her. 

Of  Mrs.  Eddy's  life  there  we  know  more 
than  of  her  life  elsewhere  in  those  years. ^^ 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wentworth  are  not  living. 
But  the  son,  Horace  T.  Wentworth,  the  wife 
whom  he  brought  home  as  a  young  bride,  Mrs. 
Arthur  L.  Holmes  (then  Lucy  Wentworth), 
and  a  niece,  now  Mrs.  Catherine  Isabel  Clapp, 
are  alive  and  retain  vivid  memories  of  that 
visit.  They  tell  me  the  same  story  of  a 
favourable  first  impression  passing  into  the 
usual  strained  relationship  as  the  daily  contact 
unveiled  a  nature  self-centred,  at  the  cost  of 
family  peace  and  happiness.  She  had  made 
trouble  a  while  before  between  Mr.  and  Mrs. 


■/ 


JO  Christian  Science 

Crafts,  and  now  she  was  sowing  the  seed  of  the 
same  possibihty  in  the  Wentworth  home  by 
trying  to  persuade  the  wife  to  go  off  with  her 
and  practise  the  Quimby  heahng. 

Here  as  elsewhere  there  was  an  aloofness 
from  real  life  that  made  more  work  for  the 
housewife  and  that  once  found  expression,  to 
the  disgust  of  a  young  mother  (Mrs.  Horace 
T.  Wentworth) ,  in  the  characterisation  of  her 
new-born  babe  as  an  "  embryo  of  human  men- 
tality." Mrs.  Holmes,  then  Lucy  Wentworth, 
in  her  teens  and  devoted  to  Mrs.  Eddy,  tells 
how  Mrs.  Eddy  put  into  her  head  the  nonsense 
that  she  was  made  of  finer  clay  than  other 
members  of  her  family.  She  also  recalls  that 
when  Mrs.  Eddy  was  not  writing  in  her  room 
or  talking  with  the  family  or  strolling  along 
country  roads,  she  was  likely  to  be  found,  Lucy 
Wentworth  with  her,  reading  the  spiritualis- 
tic journal,  The  Banner  of  Light,  or  the  back 
numbers  of  the  New  York  Ledger,  with  their 
stories  of  cloying  sweetness  and  their  high- 
pitched  sentimentalism.  Mrs.  Southworth's 
stories  seemed  to  have  a  special  charm  for  Mrs. 
Eddy,  and  if  her  reference  in  a  personal  letter 
to  "  Irving' s  Pickwick  Papers  "  ^^  be  in  evid- 
ence, she  could  not  in  those  days  have  had 
much  interest  in  Dickens. 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  71 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  her  supreme  interest  was 
Quimby.  For  the  consideration  of  three 
hundred  dollars,  to  be  "  boarded  out,"  she 
taught  all  she  knew  of  Quimby  to  JNIrs.  Went- 
worth,  who  had  a  native  talent  for  healing 
without  medicine.  In  teaching  Mrs.  Went- 
worth  she  used  a  manuscript,  which  she  allowed 
her  pupil  to  copy,  and  which  we  know  was 
Quimby 's  not  only  because  JNIrs.  Eddy  said 
so  but  also  because  it  is,  as  I  have  found,  al- 
most word  for  word  identical  with  a  Quimby 
manuscript  owned  by  George  A.  Quimby,  and 
in  his  mother's  handwriting,  bearing  the  date 
February,  1862,  eight  months  before  Mrs. 
Eddy  first  met  Quimby. 

All  those  months,  Mrs.  Eddy  was  consumed 
with  a  desire  to  put  the  Quimby  theory  into  a 
book.  She  was  ever  writing  at  it,  ever  trying 
to  find  funds  for  its  publication.  She  was 
even  willing  that  Mrs.  Wentworth,  without 
her  husband's  knowledge,  should  put  a  mort- 
gage on  the  place  to  secure  the  money  needed. 
She  talked  Quimby  until  every  one  grew 
"  dead  tired  of  hearing "  of  him,  and  Mrs. 
Clapp,  in  imitation  of  the  Quimby  propagan- 
dist, would  fold  her  hands  softly  in  her  lap, 
smile  gently,  nod  her  head  slowly  and  remark : 
"  I  learned  this  from  Dr.  Quimby,  and  he  made 


72  Christian  Science 

me  promise  to  teach  it  to  at  least  two  persons 
before  I  die/^ 

There,  too,  in  Stoughton,  the  inevitable  hour 
struck  when  how  to  say  good-bye  to  Mrs. 
Eddy  without  a  scene,  became  the  burning  is- 
sue. There  too,  as  elsewhere,  it  was  not  man- 
aged with  complete  success;  for  Mrs.  Eddy 
left  behind  when  she  at  last  departed  evidences 
of  her  frame  of  mind  not  to  be  mistaken  or 
forgotten. 

The  summer  of  1870  found  Mrs.  Eddy  once 
again  in  Lynn.  She  was  now  entering  her 
fiftieth  year.  Her  great  contemporaries  Lin- 
coln, Stanton,  Seward,  Chase,  had  finished 
their  life  work,  and  two  of  them  were  dead. 
Mrs.  Eddy  was  still  making  ready  for  a  career 
as  remarkable  in  many  ways  as  theirs.  She 
w^as  now  about  to  taste  some  of  the  sweets  of 
the  success  hitherto  denied  her. 

No  evidence  has  yet  appeared  that,  in  the 
years  that  lay  immediately  behind,  she  had 
shown  much  interest  in  healing,  or  that  she 
had  much  power  to  heal.  In  the  Wentworth 
home,  she  had  shrunk  instinctively,  like  any 
other  nervous  woman,  from  the  sick-bed  of 
others,  and  had  shown  such  a  morbid  fear  of 
death  that  Mrs.  Wentworth  often  wondered 
what  there  could  be  in  her  past  to  make  death 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  73 

seem  so  dreadful.     Mrs.  Eddy's  one  interest 
was  to  teach  Quimbyism,  to  "  carpenter  "  it 
out  into  a  book,  and  find  the  means  to  pub- 
lish it.     What  she  needed  most  was  some  one  |; 
who  could  illustrate  her  theory  by  effective  | 
healing. 

Him  she  found  in  Richard  Kennedy,^^  a^ 
brown-haired,  ruddy-faced,  enthusiastic,  good- 
natured,  industrious,  studious,  clear-headed, 
and  clean-minded  youth  just  coming  into  man- 
hood. The  two  opened  offices  together.  He 
healed  with  much  success.  His  offices  were 
crowded.  Money  poured  into  the  treasury. 
At  the  end  of  eighteen  months  she  who  had 
been  a  poor  relation  and  a  professional  visitor 
practically  all  her  adult  life  found  to  her  credit 
in  the  bank  the  neat  sum  of  $6000. 

While  her  partner  healed,  and  paid  all  bills 
for  both,  Mrs.  Eddy  taught,  and  though  the 
major  portion  of  her  profits  came  from  Rich- 
ard Kennedy's  generosity  she  also  contributed 
to  the  adequate  bank  account  she  now  had  for 
the  first  time.  In  the  new  atmosphere  of  fi- 
nancial independence,  some  of  the  small  con- 
ceits and  the  ingratiating  mannerisms  began 
to  disappear.  She  did  not  try  so  hard  to 
please  the  uncongenial.  There  was  no  press- 
ing need.     Though  by  no  means  a  recluse,  she 


74  Christian  Science 

wanted  social  contact  only  on  terms  of  her 
own  choosing.  They  who  would  have  her 
good-will  had  to  pay  the  price,  as  Mr.  Ken- 
nedy informs  me,  of  "  dancing  round  her  like  a 
Maypole." 

As  months  slipped  by,  she  grew  more  asser- 
tive and  ambitious.  Once  in  a  burst  of  con- 
fidence she  said  to  her  young  partner,  in  whom 
people  to  this  day  instinctively  confide, 
"  Richard,  I  was  born  an  unwelcome  child, 
and  I  mean  to  have  the  whole  world  at  my 
feet  before  I  die."  As  Quimbyism  in  her 
thought  began  to  grow  by  accretions  which 
Quimby  would  not  always  have  approved,  she 
looked  far  into  the  future,  saw  a  popular  re- 
ligion upbuilding  on  the  book  she  was  one 
day  to  publish,  and  with  eyes  lighted  by  the 
supreme  faith  she  had  even  then  in  her  own 
powers  she  said  more  than  once  to  Richard 
Kennedy,  "  You  will  live  to  hear  the  church 
bells  ring  out  my  birthday."  And  the  pre- 
diction has  already  been  fulfilled.  The  bells 
of  her  own  church  at  Concord  rang  out  her 
birthday,  July  16,  1904. 

As  students  multiplied,  she  grew  more 
certain  of  herself.  For  twelve  lessons,  her 
first  students  paid  her  $100  each,  promised 
her   a   life   annuity    of   ten   per   cent,    of   all 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  75 

their  future  earnings,  and  gave  a  $3000  bond 
not  to  show  to  any  one  the  copy  she  allowed 
them  to  make  of  the  manuscripts  now  grown 
from  Quimby's  one  to  three.  At  the  end  of 
three  weeks  she  saluted  them  as  "  Doctor,"  and 
sent  them  out  into  the  world  to  practise 
Quimbyism  without  the  name  of  Quimby. 
Moved,  she  says,  "  by  a  strange  providence,"  ^^ 
she  raised  her  charges  in  a  little  while  to  $300 
for  twelve  lessons,  reduced  in  later  years  in 
Boston  to  the  number  seven. 

Never  able  permanently  to  retain  those  who 
w^ould  not  give  their  heart  and  mind  completely 
to  her  keeping,  she  soon  began  to  lose  some  of 
her  more  thoughtful  students.  Writes  one  of 
them  to  me :  "  As  a  teacher  she  considered  her- 
self the  wisdom  and  in  all  things  was  to  be 
obeyed;  any  one  going  contrary  was  in  rebel- 
lion and  must  be  put  down.  In  the  class  she 
strove  to  prejudice  her  students  against  any 
rebellious  ones  through  awakening  as  much 
sympathy  as  possible  among  the  loyal  by  in- 
forming them  that  she  was  caused  both  mental 
and  physical  suffering  by  their  misconduct." 

One  woman  left  her  class  because  she 
thought  Mrs.  Eddy  "  was  taking  Christ  away 
from  her."  Another  through  the  court  re- 
covered her  tuition  fee  on  the  ground  that  she 


7^  Christian  Science 

had  not  received  her  money's  worth.  Some 
sued  her;  others  she  sued.  The  air  was  thick 
with  htigation.  With  some  of  the  choicest 
spirits  her  system  broke  down  of  sheer  absurd- 
ity as  she  began  to  put  it  to  unnecessary  strain. 
One  student  was  so  disgusted  by  her  claims 
that  she  could  raise  the  dead — to  which  claims 
more  than  one  have  testified — that  he  chal- 
lenged her  to  give  a  public  exhibition. ^^ 

She  had  her  stormy  differences  even  with  her 
youthful  partner,  whom  it  would  be  difficult 
to-day  for  any  one  to  differ  with  in  anger,  and 
after  he  performed  the  thitherto  impossible 
feat  in  1872  of  breaking  with  her  without  any 
public  scene,  and  went  off  to  complete  alone 
the  establishment  of  the  reputation  which  he 
now  enjoys  for  courtesy  and  integrity,  she 
followed  him  like  any  mediaeval  pope  with 
her  anathemas,  made  him  the  occasion  of  the 
development  of  her  strange  obsession  of  Ma- 
licious Animal  Magnetism,  singled  him  out 
nine  years  later  for  furious  denunciation  in  the 
third  edition  of  her  book,  and  at  last  dismissed 
him  with  the  inappropriate  characterisation, 
"  the  Nero  of  to-day."  ^' 

But  every  time  she  lost  a  follower  another 
came  to  take  his  place.  Disciples  increased 
alike  in  zeal  and  numbers.     Those  who  came 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  77 

to  stay  passed  under  the  spell  she  put  upon 
them.  Her  influence  had  no  necessary  rela- 
tionship to  the  system  she  was  teaching.  It 
would  have  been  as  dominating  had  she  been 
preaching  Comtism  or  JNIormonism.  It  was 
not,  as  some  have  thought,  humbuggery  that 
attracted  many,  but  a  hypnotic  influence — the 
power  Mrs.  Eddy  has  of  profound  and,  to 
some,  irresistible  suggestion,  which  none  of 
her  conspicuous  contemporaries,  except  per- 
haps QIadstQpe.  had  in  such  large  measure. 

Of  Mrs.  Eddy  and  her  students  in  those 
early  days  Georgine  Milmine  draws  this  vivid 
and  veracious  picture: 

The  closer  students,  who  constituted  Mrs.  Glov- 
er's cabinet  and  body-guard,  executed  her  commis- 
sions, transacted  her  business,  and  were  always  at 
her  call.  To-day  some  of  these  who  have  long  been 
accounted  as  enemies  b}^  Mrs.  Eddy,  and  whom  she 
has  anathematised  in  print  and  discredited  on  the 
witness-stand,  still  declare  that  what  they  got  from 
her  was  beyond  equivalent  in  gold  or  silver.  They 
speak  of  a  certain  emotional  exaltation  which  she 
was  able  to  impart  in  her  class-room;  a  feeling  so 
strong  that  it  was  like  the  birth  of  a  new  under- 
standing and  seemed  to  open  to  them  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth.  Some  of  Mrs.  Glover's  students 
experienced  this  in  a  very  slight  degree,  but  such 
as  were  imaginative  and  emotional,  and  especially 
those  who  had  something  of  the  mystic  in  their  na- 


7^  Christian  Science 

ture,  came  out  of  her  class-room  to  find  that  for 
them  the  world  had  changed.  They  lived  by  a  new 
set  of  values;  the  colour  seemed  to  fade  out  of  the 
physical  world  about  them;  men  and  women  be- 
came shadow-like,  and  their  own  humanity  grew 
pale.  The  reality  of  pain  and  pleasure,  sin  and 
grief,  love  and  death,  once  denied,  the  only  positive 
thing  in  their  lives  was  their  belief — and  that  was 
almost  w^holly  negation.  One  of  the  students  who 
was  closest  to  Mrs.  Glover  at  that  time  says  that 
to  him  the  world  outside  her  little  circle  seemed 
like  a  madhouse,  where  each  inmate  was  given  over 
to  his  delusion  of  love  or  gain  or  ambition,  and  the 
problem  which  confronted  him  was  how  to  awaken 
them  from  the  absurdity  of  their  pursuit.  It  is  but 
fair  to  say  that  occasionally  a  student  was  more  of 
a  royalist  than  the  king,  and  that  Mrs.  Glover  her- 
self had  a  very  sound  sense  of  material  values  and 
often  reminded  an  extravagant  follower  to  render 
unto  Caesar  what  was  his  due.^^ 

By  1875,  Mrs.  Eddy's  following  was  large 
enough  to  warrant  the  establishment  of  per- 
manent headquarters.  A  house,  still  standing, 
was  therefore  bought  in  Lynn,  and  in  a  low- 
ceiled  room  on  the  third  floor  Mrs.  Eddy  com- 
pleted, with  money  furnished  her  by  her 
students,  the  manuscript  of  Science  and 
Health,  gave  it  to  the  world,  and  prepared  the 
second  and  third  editions  for  her  publishers. 

It  was  this  year  that  Daniel  H.  Spofford 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  79 

cast  in  his  fortunes  with  her.  They  had  met 
four  3^ears  before.  He  had  since  become  in- 
terested in  her  work,  made  a  careful  study  of 
her  manuscripts,  and  won  some  reputation  as  a 
healer.  In  April,  1875,  she  induced  him  to 
join  her  class,  treated  him  with  marked  dis- 
tinction, gave  him  the  pen  with  which  she 
wrote  Science  and  Healthy  made  him  treasurer 
of  the  Christian  Science  Association  formed 
next  month  for  the  conduct  of  Sunday  services 
in  a  public  hall,  and  when  the  following  au- 
tumn her  book  fell  still-born  from  the  press,  it 
was  to  Mr.  Spofford  that  she  turned  to  ad- 
vertise and  push  its  sale.  A  gentle  dreamer, 
ever  on  spiritual  business  bound,  Daniel  H. 
Spofford  had  none  of  Richard  Kennedy's  im- 
pulsiveness and  easy  savoir  faire.  But  he  had 
the  same  sense  of  devotion  to  his  duty  as  he 
saw  it. 

Like  Mr.  Kennedy,  effective  as  a  healer,  Mr. 
Spofford  was  successful  also  as  a  teacher. 
Complications,  however,  came  as  usual,  and 
various  explanations  have  been  given  of  them. 
The  next  spring  it  was  evident  that  Mrs. 
Eddy  was  cooling  toward  her  favourite. ^^ 
The  summer  brought  the  open  break,  and  in 
January,  1877,  Mr.  Spofford  was  expelled 
from  the  Christian  Science  Association  on  the 


8o  Christian  Science 

serious  charge  of  immorahty,  by  which  Mrs. 
Eddy  simply  meant  disloyalty  to  her.^^ 

As  she  had  followed  and  was  still  following 
Richard  Kennedy  with  her  frenzied  thought, 
charging  him  with  mesmerism,  developing  in 
her  heated  mind  the  curious  theory  of  mali- 
cious animal  magnetism  which  was  not  found 
in  Quimbyism,  so  now  she  followed  Mr.  Spof- 
ford,  mild  and  serene  as  he  was,  to  the  ridicu- 
lous extremity  of  causing  him  to  be  haled  into 
the  Salem  court  in  the  spring  of  1878  on  the 
charge  of  witchcraft,  which  the  judge  dis- 
missed with  the  smiling  explanation  that  "  it 
was  not  within  the  power  of  the  court  to 
control  Mr.  Spofford's  mind."  "^  The  last 
strange  chapter  in  as  strange  a  story  as  ever 
yet  was  told  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  strange  career 
was  the  indictment  the  following  December  of 
Asa  Gilbert  Eddy,  Mrs.  Eddy's  husband,  and 
Edward  J.  Arens,  one  of  her  students,  by  the 
grand  jury  on  the  charge  of  conspiracy  to 
murder  Daniel  H.  Spofford.  The  evidence 
was  dubious  and  inconsequential.  No  infer- 
ence can  to-day  be  drawn  from  it  except  that 
there  was  probably  hysteria  on  one  side  and 
panic  on  the  other.  The  case  was  nolle 
prossed,  and  never  came  to  trial.^^  Mr.  Eddy 
paid  the  costs,  and  Mr.  Spofford  still  lives  and 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  8i 

at  the  age  of  sixty-five  enjoys  the  confidence 
of  those  who  know  him  well. 

It  was  through  INIr.  Spoff  ord  that  Mrs.  Eddy 
met  Asa  Gilbert  Eddy.  Her  first  husband  had 
been  dead  thirty  years  and  more.  She  had 
been  divorced  in  1873  from  Dr.  Patterson,  and 
it  was  to  JVIrs.  Glover,  and  not  JVIrs.  Patter- 
son, that  Mr.  Spoff  ord  presented  one  of  his 
new  patients,  Asa  Gilbert  Eddy.  To  speak 
with  gravity  of  this  new  friend,  who,  unlike 
many  another,  came  into  Mrs.  Eddy's  life  to 
stay,  is  far  from  easy.  When  after  five  years  of 
married  bliss  he  passed  from  earth,  Mrs.  Edd}'- 
summed  him  up  with  the  Psalmist's  challenge, 
"  Mark  the  perfect  man."  -'  But  Mrs.  Eddy's 
standard  of  perfection  was  evidently  not  the 
Psalmist's.  Unquestioning  obedience  to  her 
has  invariably  sufficed  to  uptilt  the  horn  of 
adulation  even  on  the  stupidest  head. 

From  Mrs.  Eddy's  point  of  view  Asa  Gil- 
bert Eddy  was  "  a  perfect  man."  Promoted 
from  sewing-machine  agent  to  successful 
pedler  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  precious  book,  from 
pedler  elevated  to  the  high  dignity  of  hus- 
band to  the  author,  Asa  Gilbert  Eddy  yielded 
to  his  spouse  the  unquestioning  obedience 
necessary  to  retain  his  place.  He  was  a  handy 
man  for  any  wife  to  have  about  the  house.  He 


82  Christian  Science 

did  what  he  was  told  to  do.  He  would  solicit 
students  for  his  wife  or  take  up  the  collection 
at  the  Sunday  service  when  she  preached  the 
sermon.  His  sister-in-law  remembers  that 
"  he  could  do  up  a  shirt  as  well  as  any  woman." 
Dull  but  thrifty,  slow  but  steady,  stolid  but 
dutiful,  superstitious  but  amiable,  Mrs.  Eddy's 
third  husband  furnished  a  better  background 
for  her  erratic  brilliancy  than  she  had  ever  had 
before.  Not  even  in  her  wildest  dreams  could 
Mrs.  Eddy  foresee  in  her  docile  helpmate,  as 
in  Mr.  Spofford,  a  potential  rival.  No  one 
would  be  likely,  in  all  human  probability,  to 
rally  to  the  rebel  standard  of  a  slow  little  man 
in  a  cinnamon-coloured  overcoat  and  a  fur 
cap,  which  he  was  known  to  wear,  without 
sense  of  incongruity,  even  in  the  summer. 

The  marriage  was  a  genuine  surprise  to  all. 
To  be  sure  the  grand  dame  had  allowed  the 
little  man  to  call  her  "Mary"  in  the  class- 
room, but  even  then  the  announcement  of  the 
engagement  was  too  sudden  to  be  credible. 
When  Mr.  Spofford  received  from  Eddy's 
hand  the  note  that  brought  the  news  he  re- 
marked: "You've  been  very  quiet  about  all 
this,  Gilbert."  "  Indeed,  Dr.  Spofford,"  the 
prospective  groom  replied,  "  I  did  n't  know  a 
thing  about  it  myself  until  last  night."  "^ 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  S2, 

On  New  Year's  Day,  1877,  JNIrs.  Glover, 
aged  fifty-six,  though  the  age  appeared  as 
forty  in  the  marriage  hcense,  led  to  the  altar 
the  man  of  forty  whom  she  took  for  her  third 
trial  marriage,  and  so  well  was  she  impressed 
with  him  that  after  three  days,  with  that  scant 
sense  of  the  eternal  fitness  of  things  of  which 
Mrs.  Eddy  has  often  given  illustration  in  her 
life,  she  wrote  one  of  her  students :  "  I  feel 
sure  that  I  can  teach  my  husband  up  to  a 
higher  usefulness,  to  purity,  and  the  higher  de- 
velopment of  all  his  latent  noble  ^^  qualities 
of  head  and  heart." 

He  was  willing  to  be  taught.  He  would 
even  turn  docility  into  self-effacement.  There 
is  no  evidence  that  he  objected  to  INIrs.  Eddy's 
use  of  the  editorial  "  we  "  in  writing  of  herself 
or  to  her  reference  to  him  as  "  our  husband." 
The  marriage  was,  she  says,  a  spiritual  one. 
She  had  already  made  him  "  Doctor  "  after 
his  twelve  lessons  with  her  in  the  art  of  healing. 
Now  that  he  was  completely  hers,  she  made 
him  "  the  first  organiser  of  a  Christian  Science 
Sunday-school,  which  he  superintended.  He 
also,"  she  says,  "taught  a  special  Bible-class; 
and  he  lectured  so  ably  on  scriptural  topics, 
that  clergymen  of  other  denominations  listened 
to  him  with  deep  interest.  He  was  remarkably 


84  Christian  Science 

successful  in  mind-healing,  and  untiring  in  his 
chosen  work.  In  1882  he  passed  away,  with 
a  smile  of  peace  and  love  resting  on  his  serene 
countenance."  And  IMrs.  Eddy  spoke  her 
"  Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant  "  in 
these  words:  "  Mark  the  perfect  man,  and  be- 
hold the  upright;  for  the  end  of  that  man  is 
peace."  ^^ 

A  quarter  of  a  century  has  gone  since  Mrs. 
Eddy  was  the  last  time  widowed,  and  she  has 
had  no  husband  since  to  do  her  will.  But  in 
Calvin  A.  Frye,^^  steward,  bookkeeper,  secre- 
tary, coachman,  her  "  man  of  all  work  "  as  she 
herself  has  called  him,  she  has  had  the  while 
one  singularly  devoted  to  her  and  to  her 
interests.  To  serve  her  he  gave  up  all  at 
the  outset.  Family  ties  were  relinquished. 
Friendships  were  allowed  to  languish.  It  is 
said  that  never  since  the  day  he  came,  not 
knowing  what  her  purpose  was,  in  answer  to 
her  telegram,  has  he  been  beyond  the  reach  of 
her  voice  for  a  whole  day.  Though  from  1882 
to  1900  he  received  only  ten  to  twelve  dollars  a 
week  and  board,  and  for  the  last  four  years 
has  been  paid  at  most  one  hundred  dollars  a 
month  and  board,  he  has,  according  to  his  affi- 
davit in  the  suit  entitled  Eddy  vs.  Frye  et  ah., 
received    in    money    and    jewelry    presents 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  85 

amounting  in  value  to  $7300,  and  now  has  in 
bank  $11,000  to  his  credit.  In  addition,  Mrs. 
Eddy,  for  reasons  not  divulged  in  his  affidavit, 
at  one  time  or  another  has  assigned  to  him  cer- 
tain copyrights  of  her  publications,  deeds  to 
her  home,  and  to  various  other  properties,  and 
has  had  them  at  her  will  reassigned  to  her. 

Stories  have  been  so  freely  circulated  by 
many — among  them  Dr.  E.  J.  Foster,  whom 
she  adopted  in  1882  but  who  according 
to  his  own  report  was  driven  out  of  Mrs.  Ed- 
dy's heart  and  home  by  Frye's  influence — of 
the  unusual  authority  exercised  by  a  coachman- 
secretary,  that  suit  was,  March  1st,  instituted 
by  her  son  and  others  to  break  this  authority 
once  for  all.  Frye's  reply  in  his  affidavit  was 
that  Mrs  Eddy  is  sole  manager  of  her  affairs. 
Those  nearest  to  her  testified  in  the  same 
terms.  Mrs.  Eddy  stated  clearly,  June  15th, 
to  a  representative  of  the  Boston  Globe,  *'  No 
living  person  abridges  my  rights  in  this  house 
or  governs  my  actions."  Dr.  Edward  French, 
the  expert  alienist,  July  10th,  "  was  impressed 
with  her  intelligence  and  business  ability " 
and  pronounced  her  "  competent  to  manage 
her  o\\Ti  aifairs."  And  no  less  an  alienist  than 
Dr.  Allan  McLane  Hamilton  found,  August 
12th,  that  "  she  is  competent  to  take  care  of 


86  Christian  Science 

herself  and  manage  her  affairs  and  that  she  is 
not  coerced  in  any  way."  It  was  therefore 
wise  for  the  "  next  friends,"  whatever  may 
have  been  their  motive,  to  abandon  their  law- 
suit on  August  21st. 

With  a  name,  a  book,  a  tentative  organisa- 
tion, and  headquarters.  Christian  Science  was 
fairly  launched  by  1875.  On  the  centennial 
of  the  nation's  birthday  in  1876  the  organisa- 
tion was  perfected  and  April  19,  1879,  it  was 
turned  into  a  church.  A  charter  was  obtained 
in  August,  and  Mrs.  Eddy,  called  the  same 
year  by  the  little  flock  of  twenty-six  to  be  their 
pastor,  was  ordained  in  1881.^^ 

The  church  was  not,  however,  an  immediate 
success.  Lynn  was  already  growing  weary  of 
the  new  faith  and  its  founder.  She  was  so 
often  in  the  courts  that  the  Boston  papers 
were  headlining  her  troubles  with  increasing 
facetiousness.  Students  one  by  one  withdrew 
till  once  she  had  but  two  left.  She  was 
meanwhile,  under  the  great  strain,  growing 
so  difficult  to  satisfy  that  even  her  obedient 
husband  once  confided  to  a  friend  that  he  did 
''  not  beheve  God  Almighty  could  please  Mrs. 
Eddy."  Realising  that  there  was  nothing 
more  that  she  could  do  in  Lynn  she  dissolved 
her  little  church  of  less  than  fifty  members. 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  87 

and  early  in  the  winter  of  1882  beat  a  wise  re- 
treat to  Boston. 

She  had  for  several  years  been  reconnoi- 
tring there, — lecturing  occasionally  in  1878  in 
a  Baptist  church  on  Shawmut  Avenue  and  in 
1879  giving  Sunday  afternoon  talks  in  the 
Parker  Fraternity  Building,  on  Appleton 
Street,  to  audiences  ranging  from  twenty-five 
to  fifty.  By  1880  there  were  a  few  Christian 
Scientists  meeting  every  week  at  the  home  of 
Mrs.  Clara  Choate.  On  Dec.  12,  1880,  the 
services  were  transferred  to  the  Hawthorne 
rooms  on  Park  Street,  and  before  ^Irs.  Eddy 
removed  to  Boston  her  habit  was  to  come  up 
every  Sunday  from  Lynn,  conduct  the  ser- 
vice, and  preach  the  sermon. 

In  1881  a  charter  was  secured  for  the  IMas- 
sachusetts  Metaphysical  College.  The  college 
was  at  first  designed  to  help  her  to  rehabilitate 
herself  in  Lynn.  It  never  had  a  building  of 
its  own.  It  met  in  Mrs.  Eddy's  parlour,  and 
its  faculty,  consisting  solely  of  ]Mrs.  Eddy,  was 
not  as  large  as  the  faculty  of  that  western  col- 
lege which  INIr.  Bryce  once  to  his  amusement 
found  was  made  up  of  the  president  and  his 
versatile  wife.  But  the  college  grew  in  the 
face  of  all  discouragements  and  out  of  it  de- 
veloped various  organisations.  At  last  in  1886 


88  Christian  Science 

the  National  Christian  Science  Association 
was  formed,  which  met  in  general  convention 
in  New  York  City  February  11,  1886.  From 
Science  and  Health  sprang  new  editions  in  be- 
wildering frequency  with  passing  years,  vari- 
ous smaller  books  and  brochures^  The  Chris- 
tian Science  Journal,  published  once  a  month 
and  now  in  its  twenty-fifth  year,  and  at  last 
The  Christian  Science  Sentinel,  this  year  in 
its  ninth  volume. 

Mrs.  Eddy  was  now  coming  to  her  own. 
Her  organisations  were  developing.  She  too 
was  growing  steadily  in  the  power  to  express 
herself  with  pen  and  tongue.  There  were 
still  vagueness  and  verbosity  in  both  her  priv- 
ate correspondence  and  her  published  writings. 
But  there  was  also  a  new  ease  evident.  She 
was  learning  somewhat  of  the  art  of  feather- 
ing the  arrow  of  expression.  More  import- 
ant still,  she  was  beginning  to  submit  her  liter- 
ary productions  to  others  for  censorship  ere  she 
gave  them  forth  to  that  cold  world  which  still 
is  slow  to  take  her  at  her  own  high  valuation. 

Astute  beyond  description  Mrs.  Eddy  had 
discovered  that  to  make  the  most  profound  im- 
pression on  an  audience  one  must  not  speak 
too  often  and  one  must  never  speak  except 
when  in  the  speaking  mood.     She  now  began 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  89 

to  limit  the  number  of  her  public  addresses 
and  never  hesitated  to  break  her  Sunday  ap- 
pointment if  she  were  not  "  in  the  Spirit  on  the 
Lord's  day."  Her  substitutes  had  to  be  ready 
at  short  notice  to  officiate  and  sometimes  even 
then  "  after  the  audience  at  Hawthorne  Hall 
had  been  waiting  for  perhaps  half  an  hour, 
Mrs.  Eddy's  carriage  would  swing  into  Park 
Street,  the  horses  on  a  trot,  and  she  would 
alight  amid  a  crowd  of  delighted  students, 
sweep  rapidly  up  the  aisle,  ascend  the  rostrum, 
and  at  once  begin  to  deliver  one  of  her  most 
effective  sermons." 

A  critic  who  heard  her  in  the  eighties  in  the 
pulpit  and  the  class-room  pays  this  tribute  to 
her  singular  impressiveness : 

"  From  hearing  Mrs.  Eddy  preach,  from  reading 
her  books,  from  talking  to  her,  one  does  not  get  an 
adequate  idea  of  her  mental  powers,  unless  one 
hears  her  also  in  her  classes.  Not  only  is  she  glow- 
ingly earnest  in  presenting  her  convictions,  but  her 
language  and  illustrations  are  remarkable.  She 
is  quick  in  repartee,  and  keenly  turns  a  jest  upon 
her  questioner,  but  not  offensively  or  unkindly. 
She  reads  faces  rapidly.  A  brief  exposition  of  the 
Book  of  Job,  which  one  day  entered  incidentally 
into  her  statement  of  how  God  is  found,  would  do 
honour  to  any  ecclesiastic.  Critical  listeners  are 
frequently  astonished  at  the  strength  of  her  argu- 


go  Christian  Science 

ment  and  cogency  of  her  reasoning,  even  when  they 
cannot  fully  agree  with  her  conclusions.  While  she 
is  quick  to  detect  variations  from  her  own  views, 
and  to  argue  the  point,  she  maintains  the  utmost 
repose  in  every  debate.  In  fact,  she  is  a  natural 
class-leader,  and  three  hours  pass  quickly  away  in 
her  lessons."  ^^ 

At  first  she  hved  at  569,  then  at  571,  Colum- 
bus Avenue,  and  in  1887  purchased  a  house  in 
the  Back  Bay  district,  385  Commonwealth 
Avenue,^^  where  the  First  Reader  of  the 
Mother  Church  is  now  directed  by  the  Manual 
to  reside.  Her  house  w^as  her  strategic  point 
for  doing  things  and  managing  people. 
Classes  were  meeting  all  day  long.  There  was 
little  social  intercourse  and  no  idling.  Butthere 
was  much  self-consciousness  grown  morbid 
through  Mrs.  Eddy's  over-emphasis  of  ma- 
licious animal  magnetism.  She  herself  was 
troubled  with  nocturnal  hysteria  which  she  in- 
variably ascribed  to  "  M.  A.  M."  as  she  famil- 
iarly designated  it.  It  was  not  unusual  for 
the  whole  family  and  even  students  living  near 
to  be  called  up  at  night  to  give  her  mental 
treatment.  If  the  wash-boiler  leaked  or  the 
waterpipes  froze,  ''  M.  A.  M."  was  the  mahgn 
agent  to  be  withstood  by  the  united  effort  of 
the  little  band  of  her  retainers,  whom  at  last 
she  organised  into  the  "  P.  JNI.   Society,"  to 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  91 

present  a  solid  front  to  the  unseen  and  mahg- 
nant  foe.  For  years  her  house  was  the  "  House 
of  Mesmer,"  and  "  resembled  nothing  so  much 
as  one  of  the  small  Italian  courts  of  the  fif- 
teenth century;  reputations  were  made  or  lost 
by  an  accident,  and  the  favourite  of  to-day  was 
the  exile  of  to-morrow."  ^^  It  was  in  her  home 
that  she  tested  those  who  came  her  way.  She 
drew  them  closer  to  her  if  she  thought  that  she 
could  use  them;  she  sent  them  off  if  they 
would  not  do  her  will. 

Sometimes  her  liking  for  new  people  was 
so  quick  and  irresistible  that  she  at  once  made 
them  members  of  her  household.  One  man, 
Dr.  E.  J.  Foster,  she  legally  adopted  as  her 
son,  gave  him  the  name  of  Foster-Eddy,  had 
him  live  in  her  house,  and  serve  her  as  account- 
ant and  publisher.  His  story  of  how  his  posi- 
tion was  made  imj^ossible  by  another  favourite 
of  Mrs.  Eddy's  and  how  at  last  he  fled  in  great 
alarm  and  still  fears  for  his  life,  reads  like  a 
page  from  the  Arabian  Nights.  Another,  a 
woman,  the  cleverest  perhaps  that  ever  basked 
in  INIrs.  Eddy's  sunshine  for  a  season,  became 
ambitious,  claimed  to  have  pushed  Mrs.  Ed- 
dy's views  on  the  spiritual  propagation  of  the 
species  to  their  logical  conclusion  of  "  imma- 
culate conception,"  and — to  quote  the  title  of 


92  Christian  Science 

the  book  she  later  wrote — in  the  War  in 
Heaven  which  resulted,  suffered  the  fate  of 
Satan  in  Milton's  poem. 

Out  of  all  the  experiments  of  past  years 
has  been  developed  Mrs.  Eddy's  present  cabi- 
net, including  Alfred  Farlow,  devoted  to  her 
now  these  twenty  years  and  her  official  spokes- 
man; Archibald  McClellan,  man  of  affairs  and 
editor  of  the  Christian  Science  periodicals,  H. 
S.  Hering,  First  Reader  in  her  church  at  Con- 
cord; Rev.  Irving  C.  Tomlinson,  a  Congre- 
gational preacher  turned  Christian  Scientist 
and  now  her  loyal  follower:  Mrs.  Laura  E. 
Sargeant,  her  household  companion  and  con- 
fidant for  fifteen  years ;  H.  Cornell  Wilson,  her 
secretary;  and  Calvin  A.  Frye,  who  is,  ac- 
cording to  reports,  nearer  to  Mrs.  Eddy  than 
any  one  else.^^ 

The  year  1889  is  an  epochal  date  in  Mrs. 
Eddy's  later  history.  It  marks  the  closing  of 
some  of  her  efforts,  the  acceleration  of  others, 
and  the  initiation  of  new  ones.  She  was  now 
entering  on  the  last  and  largest  stage  of  her 
public  life.  Her  college  had,  she  says,  suc- 
ceeded beyond  her  fondest  hopes.  It  was  not 
merely  filled,  it  was  "  flooded,"  with  students 
paying  their  $300  for  a  three  weeks'  course  in 
mental  healing.  Students  came  not  only  from 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  93 

America  but  from  Europe  too, — and  in  1889 
there  were  300  on  the  waiting  Hst.  The  un- 
precedented popularity  of  the  institution  gave 
Mrs.  Eddy  some  concern.  "  Example  has 
shown,"  she  writes,  "  the  danger  arising  from 
being  placed  on  earthly  pinnacles,  and  Chris- 
tian Science  shuns  whatever  involves  material 
means  for  the  promotion  of  spiritual  ends."  ^^ 

But  there  was  another  circumstance  which 
possibly  gave  some  concern,  if  one  may  read 
between  the  lines  of  her  discussion  of  it.  Ac- 
cording to  her  words,  the  college  charter  she 
obtained  in  1881  brought  with  it  "  the  right 
to  grant  degrees."  The  act  on  which  the  grant 
was  based,  however,  was  repealed  in  1882. 
Next  year  the  conferring  of  "  any  diploma  or 
degree"  by  a  "corporation"  or  "associa- 
tion," was  made  punishable  by  the  courts. 
Mrs.  Eddy  claimed  that  her  college  did  not  fall 
under  the  heading  of  a  "  corporation "  or 
"  association  "  and  was  therefore  in  no  wise 
affected  by  the  law.  But  when  there  was 
some  reason  in  1889  to  expect  that  her  inter- 
pretation was  not  to  be  accepted  without  a 
test,  she  closed  her  college, — and  the  subject.^* 

Fertile  as  ever  in  resource,  leaving  nothing 
to  chance,  forestalling  difficulties  that  might 
later  prove  embarrassing,  she  at  once  gave  her 


94  Christian  Science 

students  a  new  interest  and  by  a  bold  stroke 
rallied  all  who  might  possibly  have  been  dis- 
couraged by  the  closing  of  the  college  to  the 
support  of  the  church  now,  after  some  experi- 
mentation, to  be  developed  to  its  utmost  pos- 
sibilities. The  first  proper  step  in  the  new 
policy  was  evidently  to  erect  a  building 
large  enough  to  meet  the  growing  needs 
of  Christian  Science  and  attractive  enough 
to  lure  the  casual.  Before  the  year  was  at 
an  end  Mrs.  Eddy  gave  as  a  site  for  the 
new  church  a  lot  worth,  she  says,  "  twenty 
thousand  dollars,"  which  had  come  to  her  for 
$5000,  "  in  a  circuitous  and  novel  way  "  ^^ — 
to  quote  her  own  words,  "  materially  question- 
able," "  the  wisdom  of  which  a  few  persons 
have  since  scrupled."  It  was  on  this  lot  that 
the  granite  building  with  a  seating  capacity 
of  1500  was  erected  in  1894  at  a  cost  of  $221,- 
000,  which  now  stands  as  a  frontispiece  to  the 
colossal  temple,  seating  5000,  completed  in 
1906,  at  a  cost  of  $2,000,000. 

It  was  a  happy  day  for  Mrs.  Eddy  when  in 
1889,  actuated  in  part  by  patriotic  sentiment, 
she  removed  to  Concord,  New  Hampshire, 
a  few  miles  from  her  birthplace.  She 
was  approaching  the  time  limit  which  the 
psalmist  sets  for  normal  human  life,  but  her 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  95 

natural  force  was  far  from  spent.  She  was 
passing  on  toward  old  age  with  less  infirmity 
than  she  had  often  felt  in  earlier  years.  And 
yet  it  was  well  for  her  that  she  then  withdrew 
to  Concord.  The  strife  of  tongues,  the  clash- 
ings  of  ambition,  the  inevitable  frictions  of  a 
growing  church,  the  "  constant  troubles  in  Bos- 
ton "  might  possibly  have  qualified  the  unique 
prestige  she  enjoyed  had  she  been  near  enough 
to  be  tempted  to  take  a  hand  in  all  of  them.^^ 

It  was  JNIahomet  withdrawn  to  Medina  who 
later  dominated  Mecca,  and  it  was  ^Irs.  Eddy 
removed  to  Concord  who  won  prophetic  em- 
inence in  Boston.^^  If  a  new  religion  is  to 
come  to  large  proportions  a  cloud  of  mystery 
must  some  day  gather  round  the  head  of  the 
originator. 

The  founder  of  Christian  Science  has  been 
fortunate  to  have  her  personality  take  on  a 
little  mystery  before  her  death.  At  Concord 
she  has  been  far  enough  away  to  arrange  with 
dramatic  detail  the  infrequent  epiphany  of 
pilgrims  who  have  come  from  far  and  near  to 
break  their  alabaster  box  upon  her  feet  and  to 
receive  upon  their  reverent  heads  her  blessing 
from  the  balcony  of  Pleasant  View.  At  Con- 
cord she  has  not  been  so  far  away  but  that  she 
could  keep  the  reins  of  government  well  within 


96  Christian  Science 

her  practised  hands  as  those  about  her  testify 
has  been  and  is  to-day  her  habit. 

Christian  Science  is  a  movement  of  signifi- 
cance from  the  point  of  view  of  numbers.  Mrs. 
Eddy  claims  more  than  a  milhon  followers. 
Certainly  the  whole  world  over  there  are  those 
who  call  her  blessed,  and  who  prove  their  grati- 
tude by  building  costly  and  .  commodious 
churches.  The  Christian  Science  congrega- 
tions number  now  at  least  a  thousand,  of  which 
perhaps  three  hundred  are  not  regularly  or- 
ganised under  state  laws  but  are  simply 
societies  holding  public  services.  The  Mother 
Church  in  Boston  reported  June  11,  1907,  a 
membership  of  43,876,  and  the  total  member- 
ship of  the  645  branch  churches  which  have  re- 
ported, is  now  42,846.^^ 

The  aggregate  membership,  however,  is  not 
so  large  as  might  appear;  for  as  the  Publica- 
tion Committee  writes  me,  ''AM  the  members 
of  the  branch  churches  are  eligible  to  member- 
ship in  the  Mother  Church  and  I  think  it  is 
safe  to  assume  that  a  very  large  percentage  of 
them  belong  to  that  society."  To  the  enrol- 
ment, therefore,  of  42,846  in  the  branch 
churches  must  be  added  not  all  the  43,876  in 
the  Mother  Church  but  only  that  relatively 
small  percentage  of  them  who  are  members  of 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  97 

no  church  except  the  Mother  Church.  But 
on  the  other  hand,  the  Committee  on  Pubhca- 
tion  bids  us  to  remember,  that  there  are  many- 
Christian  Scientists  at  heart  who  are  "  situated 
as  to  their  family  relations  and  otherwise  so 
that  it  does  not  seem  advisable  to  sever  their 
old  connections  at  the  present  time  and  for 
that  reason  it  is  not  easy  to  estimate  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  are  actually  interested."  ^^ 

However  numerous  Christian  Scientists 
may  be,  Mrs.  Eddy  is  their  ruler  absolute.^^ 
No  earthly  potentate  has  the  authority  which 
Mrs.  Eddy  now  enjoys.  If  the  whole  world 
is  not  yet  at  her  feet  as  she  hopes  it  may  be  be- 
fore she  dies,  she  has  worshippers  enough  to 
give  some  pertinence  to  proud  ambition.  Na- 
poleon's one  hope  to  perpetuate  his  throne  was 
through  a  son.  INIrs.  Eddy  is  content  to  per- 
petuate her  pulpit  by  a  book.  No  one  can 
succeed  her  in  the  Christian  Science  pulpit, 
which  nowhere  has  a  preacher,  and  in  the 
place  of  a  preacher.  Science  and  Health,  read 
by  a  reader  chosen  with  her  approval,  is  every- 
where the  Sunday  sermon  in  connection  with 
and  in  comment  on  the  Bible. 

Those  who  would  know  how  absolute  is 
Mrs.  Eddy's  will  must  read  not  Science  and 
Health  but  the  Manual  of  the  :Mother  Church 


98  Christian  Science 

in  Boston,  of  which  it  should  always  be  remem- 
bered most  Christian  Scientists  in  the  land  are 
members.  JNIrs.  Edd}^  claims  for  the  Manual, 
prepared  in  1892,  as  for  Science  and  Health, 
that  it  was  in  its  origin  "  impelled  by  a  power 
not  one's  own."  ^^  If  Science  and  Health 
surprises  one  by  its  extraordinary  theories,  the 
Manual  amazes  us  by  the  powders  it  entrusts 
to  Mrs.  Eddy. 

Pastor  Emeritus  to  Science  and  Health  and 
not  to  any  pastor  in  the  flesh,  Mrs.  Eddy  has 
all  the  authority  she  had  when  she  was  pastor 
w  ithout  the  wxar  and  tear  of  pastoral  relation- 
ship. The  Church  has  its  directors  and  trustees 
but  they  are  responsible  to  Mrs.  Eddy.  The 
Church  elects  its  readers  but  always  from  a 
list  approved  by  Mrs.  Eddy,  and  she  can  re- 
move a  reader  without  assigning  any  reason 
for  her  act. 

Every  application  for  membership  must  be 
passed  upon  by  Mrs.  Eddy.  Every  Christian 
Scientist  is  responsible  to  her  for  even  some  of 
the  incidental  interests  of  hfe.  No  Christian 
Scientist  may  read  books  on  hypnotism  or  may 
patronise  any  publishers  or  booksellers  w^ho 
have  books  for  sale  that  criticise  the  cause.  No 
Christian  Scientist  may  make  bold  to  stroll  by 
Pleasant  View  or  to  haunt  JSlrs.  Eddy's  drive 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  99 

or  spend  a  while  in  Concord  with  the  thought 
of  seeing  her.  No  Christian  Scientist,  either 
man  or  woman,  may  refuse  at  JNIrs.  Eddy's 
call  to  leave  business,  home,  and  kindred  and 
go  to  live  with  her  at  Pleasant  View  for  years 
if  she  so  orders. 

On  each  instance  of  infraction  of  these  rules,  "^ 
Mrs.  Eddy  sits  in  judgment.  She  acts  also  as 
jury,  and  from  her  decision  there  is  no  appeal. 
She  professes  actual  infallibility  in  dealing 
with  those  who  practise  hypnotism.  "  I  pos- 
sess," she  says,  "  a  spiritual  sense  of  what  the 
malicious  mental  practitioner  is  mentally  argu- 
ing, which  cannot  be  deceived;  I  can  discern 
in  the  human  mind  thoughts,  motives,  and  pur- 
poses ;  and  neither  mental  arguments  nor  psy- 
chic power  can  affect  this  spiritual  insight."  ^^ 

The  directors  of  the  Christian  Science  edu- 
cational work  are  chosen  subject  to  her  ap- 
proval, and  she  is  president  of  the  board 
besides.  There  are  teachers,  lecturers,  mis- 
sionaries— chosen  ever  with  her  consent — and 
even  the  minor  employees  of  the  Publishing 
Society  are  not  selected  save  with  her  ap- 
proval and  are  removable  at  her  discretion. 

Especially  important  is  the  Committee  on 
Publication  consisting  of  one  member  chosen 
with  Mrs.  Eddy's  sanction,  and  receiving  a 


TOO  Christian  Science 

salary  of  at  least  $4000  a  year.  His  business 
is  to  conduct  the  Christian  Science  propa- 
ganda through  the  press  the  whole  world 
over,  to  correct  misapprehensions  in  regard 
to  Christian  Science,  to  answer  criticisms  of 
Mrs.  Eddy  and  the  cause,  and  "  to  circulate  in 
large  quantities  "  his  published  answers.  No 
explanation  of  the  growth  of  Christian  Science 
can  be  adequate  that  does  not  give  full  credit 
to  the  Committee  on  Publication.  During  Mr. 
Alfred  Farlow's  term  of  office,  these  eight 
years  past,  the  Press  Bureau  has  been  brought 
to  a  high  degree  of  efficiency. 

Mrs.  Eddy  may  be  described  as  a  Mona 
Lisa.  If  in  the  light  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  history, 
one  may  not  say, 

"  She  remains  from  perturbation  free, 
This  woman  that  hath  made  all  life  her  own,"  ^^ 

one  may  say  that  opinions  of  Mrs.  Eddy  differ 
as  widely  as  those  concerning  the  inscrutable 
woman  who  looks  out  from  Leonardo's  puz- 
zling picture. 

To  some  Mrs.  Eddy  has  for  many  years 
seemed  but  the  passive  tool  of  designing  men 
who  play  upon  her  vanity  to  put  money  in 
their  purse.  To  others  she  is  not  merely,  as 
one  close  to  her  has  v/ritten  me,  the  purest, 
wisest,  most  unselfish  of  women,^^  but  also  as 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith         loi 

another  devotee  has  said,  "  the  transparency 
to  this  age,  for  the  reflection  of  God  to 
mankind."  ^^ 

Whatever  secrets  may  he  hid  behind  her  se- 
rene face,^^  Mrs.  Eddy  is  no  ordinary  woman. 
She  is  rich,  famous,  popular,  and  powerful. 
Author  of  a  book  which  many  thousands  set 
above  the  Bible  and  study  with  devoutness 
every  day,  Mrs.  Eddy  has  accumulated  a  great 
fortune  out  of  its  enormous  sale.  Head  of  a 
large  and  growing  organisation  of  her  own 
creation  and  as  compact  and  obedient  to  her 
every  wish  as  a  modern  arm}^  Mrs.  Eddj^ 
is  beloved  by  all  her  subjects  and  by  many  of 
them  practically  deified. 

Distinction  either  in  authorship  or  organisa- 
tion never  comes  by  chance.  With  a  great 
price  it  is  purchased.  To  win  world-wide 
fame,  which  thousands  are  profoundly  sure 
will  prove  undying,  both  in  authorship  and 
organisation,  is  an  achievement  only  those  will 
underestimate  who  have  not  tried  to  purchase 
either. 

And  yet  all  the  way  along  these  forty  years 
of  such  singleness  of  purpose  as  probably  has 
never  been  surpassed  by  womankind,  Mrs. 
Eddy  has  had  heavy  handicaps. 

Always     frail     in     health,     she     has     not 


/ 


a 


1 02  Christian  Science 

infrequently  been  positively  ill.  Untrained 
in  early  life  to  think,  to  write,  to  achieve,  she 
was  past  fifty  before  she  found  herself.  The 
impecunious  sport  of  fortune,  ill-fated  in  one 
marriage,  unhappy  in  another,  unaffected  to 
any  considerable  extent  by  a  third,  thirty  years 
out  of  her  long  life  were  filled  with  embarrass- 
ments, discouragements,  mortifications,  and 
temptations. 

Interested  more  in  her  idea  than  in  the  peo- 
ple it  drew  to  her  she  has  suffered  the  for- 
lornness  which  comes  to  those  who  sacrifice 
relationships  to  ideas.  "  I  am  alone  in  the 
world,"  she  wrote  to  her  son  in  1898;  "more 
alone  than  a  solitary  star.  .  .  .  My  home  is 
simply  a  house  and  a  beautiful  landscape. 
There  is  not  one  in  it  that  I  love,  only  as  I  love 
everybody."  '' 

Ambitious  to  have  the  whole  world  at  her 
feet  she  has  been  teacher,  leader,  "  Mother 
INIary,"  everything  except  the  simple  friend 
giving  and  receiving  on  those  terms  of 
entire  equality  which  ensure  the  happiest  as 
well  as  richest  life.  That  was  why  a  woman 
in  whose  home  she  took  her  meals  in  1872  once 
said  after  a  sharp  censure  received  from  Mrs. 
Eddy :  "  That  woman  is  either  a  saint  or  a 
devil:  I  'm  sure  I  don't  know  which."  ^'     The 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith         103 

only  thing  of  which  anybody  could  be  sure 
was  that  JNIrs.  Eddy  was  never  to  be  taken  on 
terms  of  equaUty  by  any  one  who  crossed  her 
path. 

A  determination  unshaken  through  the  years 
to  win  her  point  at  any  cost  has  brought  its 
incidental  disadvantages.  People  of  fine  sen- 
sibilities instinctively  distrust  the  woman  who 
airs  her  grievances  in  court.  JNlrs.  Eddy  has 
been  in  court  too  often  for  her  own  best  in- 
terests. She  has  too  often  turned  to  strat- 
egy. And  when  the  recent  lawsuit  was  begun 
it  seemed  at  first  to  some  as  though  there  was 
to  be  at  last  ironical  illustration  of  the  words 
of  Him  who  never  went  to  law:  "  They  that 
take  the  sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword." 

With  the  head  of  the  INIother  Church  set- 
ting all  through  life  a  questionable  example,  it 
was  natural  for  the  directors  of  the  Church  to 
expose  Christian  Science  to  the  humihation  of 
the  other  day  when  the  Massachusetts  Su- 
preme Court  decided  that  not  merely  had  the 
directors  in  the  building  of  the  new  church 
broken  a  legal  contract  but  that  they  had  also 
entered  into  a  conspiracy  with  the  labour 
union.  The  leader  of  a  rehgious  movement 
embarrasses  the  cause  in  unexpected  ways  by 
frequent  lawsuits  and  by  legal  subterfuges.'^ 


I04  Christian  Science 

Love  of  money  has  been  the  root  of  many 
an  ill  in  Mrs.  Eddy's  life.  Spiritual  gifts  are 
too  precious  to  be  habitually  prostituted  to  the 
accumulation  of  dollars  even  though  the  dol- 
lars are  designed  at  last  for  the  perpetuation 
of  a  church.  It  jars  the  spirit  to  turn 
from  Mrs.  Eddy's  claim  that  Science  and 
Health  is  "  God's  Book  and  He  says  give 
it  at  once  to  the  people  "  ^^  to  her  suggestion 
of  some  years  ago  that  it  pays  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian Scientist,  to  her  sometime  admission  that 
Christian  Science  healers  have  made  ''  their 
comfortable  fortunes,"  and  to  her  insistence 
on  selling  what  she  distinctly  and  steadily  as- 
serts is  a  spiritual  necessity  at  a  profit  which 
has  led  in  the  case  of  corporations  having  a 
monopoly  of  the  physical  necessities  of  life  to 
government  investigation  and  universal  repro- 
bration.  To  have  a  fortune  of  admittedly 
about  a  million  dollars  accruing  largely  from 
the  sale  of  a  Book  of  Revelation  which  con- 
tains "  nothing  of  human  opinion  "  ^^  and  yet 
for  years  to  evade  one's  proportionate  share  of 
taxpaying,  even  though  one  gives  back  in  other 
ways  large  sums  to  the  community  in  which 
one  lives,  is  to  put  too  great  a  strain  on  public 
confidence. 

But  Mrs.  Eddy's  heaviest  handicap  has  been 
her  habitual  sense  of  blamelessness.    To  claim 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith  105 

inerrancy  in  judgment  would  be  incredible 
enough.  To  claim,  besides,  always  to  have 
been  correct  in  conduct  is  to  overtax  credulity. 
To  profess  to  be,  in  a  unique  sense,  of  "  divine 
origin,"  to  be  one  with  God  in  authorship,  to 
be  "  only  a  scribe  echoing  the  harmonies  of 
heaven,"  to  have  a  revelation  "  higher,  clearer, 
and  more  permanent  "  than  Jesus  had,  and 
steadily  to  deny  in  the  face  of  every  fact  that 
she  has  ever  been  at  fault  in  all  the  many  dif- 
ficulties she  has  had  with  others  is  to  invite  an 
analogy  to  Jesus  which  her  record  cannot 
stand.  If  only  her  family  had  found  some 
fault  with  her,  one  would  remember  that  the 
relatives  of  Jesus  never  took  Him  at  his  proper 
valuation.  If  only  the  clergy  and  the  doctors 
had  been  scandalised  by  Mrs.  Eddy's  words 
and  works,  one  would  instinctively  recall  that 
it  was  the  common  people  who  heard  Jesus 
gladly.  But,  unhappily,  those  who  have  been 
most  severe  on  JNIrs.  Eddy  all  these  years  have 
been  her  own  familiar  friends,  even  her  dis- 
ciples chosen  by  her  own  free  will,  from  the 
days  when  Mrs.  Crosby,  as  she  still  admits, 
found  pleasure  in  her  company  till  not  many 
years  ago  when  INIrs.  Eddy  learned  how  to 
bind  disciples  to  her  with  hoops  of  steel  by 
assuring  them  a  comfortable  income  while  they 
practise  their  discipleship. 


io6  Christian  Science 

Among  the  twelve  there  was  one  Judas,  only 
one.  It  has  been  the  lament  of  Mrs.  Eddy's 
long  career,  especially  before  she  moved  to 
Concord,  that  there  have  been  many  Judases 
among  her  twelve.  Jesus  let  his  solitary 
Judas  go  out  into  the  night  and  into  the  last- 
ing detestation  of  the  world  without  a  word 
of  execration.  As  Judas  after  Judas  has  for- 
saken Mrs.  Eddy's  communion,  he  has  gone 
out,  with  infrequent  exceptions,  into  the  day- 
light of  a  friendly  world  sometimes  to  be  fol- 
lowed through  long  years  by  Mrs.  Eddy's 
fiery  fulminations.  How  could  it  be  other- 
wise with  thirty-six  of  those  nearest  to  her  and 
most  prominent  withdrawing  at  one  time  af- 
ter planning  first  to  expel  her  from  her 
church?  ^^  If  now  in  the  fulness  of  her  fame 
she  would,  like  the  great  and  good  of  ages 
past,  acknowledge  that  she  has  not  always  had 
the  right  of  it  in  all  the  strained  relationships 
of  life,  particularly  in  the  Quimby  contro- 
versy, the  voice  of  criticism  would  even  now, 
though  late,  lose  its  sharpness,  her  reputation 
for  generosity  would  be  enhanced,  and  the 
golden  thread,  which  runs  through  the  strange 
pattern  of  her  long  career,  would  be  more 
evident.  But  so  long  as  she  continues  to  in- 
quire—as she  did  on  August  25th  ^'— "  Have 


The  Founder  of  the  Faith         107 

I  ever  injured  any  one?"  inviting  thus  the 
still  unanswered  challenge  of  the  JMan  of  Naz- 
areth "  Which  of  you  convinceth  me  of  sin?  ", 
only  those  can  find  her  faultless  who  doubt  the 
infallibility  of  that  intuition  which,  she  says, 
enables  her  to  "  discern  in  the  human  mind 
thoughts,  motives,  and  purposes  "  or  who  un- 
der her  spell  are  blind  to  the  indisputable  fact 
that  many  a  disciple  ]Mrs.  Eddy  to-day  re- 
gards as  a  Judas  has  gone  out  from  her  be- 
cause the  disillusionment  of  close  relationship 
with  her  or  intimate  acquaintance  with  her 
theory  has  disclosed  the  arrant  folly  of  build- 
ing any  house  upon  the  sand. 

Mrs.  Eddy  wdll  be  judged  in  years  to  come 
not  by  her  authorship,  nor  by  the  efficient  or- 
ganisation she  has  built  up,  but  by  her  daily 
life  along  the  past  now  lit  at  last  by  informa- 
tion. Ambition,  avarice,  love  of  fame  and 
power  may  have  their  place  in  the  career  of 
a  Wolsey,  an  Elizabeth,  a  Richeheu,  and  a  Na- 
poleon. In  the  life  of  a  true  religious  leader, 
they  have  no  proper  place,  and  after  JNIrs. 
Eddy's  death  has  broken  the  spell  of  "the 
grand  old  hypnotist,"  ^^  the  world  will  see  her 
as  she  is  with  all  her  faults  as  well  as  all  her 
virtues,  to  which  those  nearest  her  bear  con- 
stant witness. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  PHILOSOPHY 

A  Phase  of  Idealism — Mrs.  Eddy  Makes  a  "  Revelation  " 
of  it — The  Battle  Cry  of  Christian  Science — The 
Question  of  Reality — Christian  Science  neither 
Christian  nor  Scientific — The  Practical  Objection — 
Difficulties  of  Apologists — Soul  Senses — Mrs.  Eddy's 
Isolation — An  Unanswerable  Criticism — No  Room  for 
Evolution — A  Grave  Indictment — Timely  Illustrations 
of  its  Philosophical  Anarchy. 

THE  x^hilosophy  of  Christian  Science  is 
not  difficult  to  state.  It  is  merely  a 
distinctive  form  of  idealism.  It  is,  in  plain 
words,  the  theory,  almost  as  old  as  man,  that 
there  is  no  reality  save  thought.  India  had 
the  general  idea  before  ever  Gautama  took  his 
seat  beneath  the  bo-tree.  Democritus  of  Ab- 
dera  as  early  as  430  B.C.  remarked:  "Man 
lives  plunged  in  a  world  of  illusion  and  of 
deceptive  forms  which  the  vulgar  take  for 
reality."  Plato  aroused  a  thoughtful  interest 
in  it  among  the  metaphysical.  The  Zend- 
Avesta   is   tinged   with   idealism.     The   Neo- 

loS 


The   Philosophy  109 

Platonists  made  much  of  it  in  the  early  Chris- 
tian centuries. 

Bishop  Berkeley,  without  denying  the  ex- 
/ternal  world  which  we  know,  gave  it  a  new 
vogue  two  hundred  years  ago.  Spinoza's 
*'  Universal  Substance  "  is  substantially  Mrs. 
Eddy's  "  Infinite  Mind."  Kant  went  so  far 
as  to  lay  down  the  proposition  that  "  the  laws 
of  nature  which  physical  science  studies  are 
the  creations  of  our  own  understanding,  acting 
upon  the  data  of  the  senses."  Lotze  said  that 
**  matter  is  nothing  but  an  appearance  for  our 
perception."  The  Transcendentalists  were 
wont  to  speak  of  "  the  supremacy  of  mind  over 
matter,"  and  Emerson  could  on  occasion  sing: 

"  Out  of  thought's  interior  sphere 
These  wonders  rose  in  upper  air." 

But  none  of  them  ever  dreamed  of  doing 
what  Mrs.  Eddy  has  accomplished  in  a  single 
generation,  making  the  philosophy  of  idealism 
in  the  minds  of  thousands  a  revelation  handed 
down  from  heaven  at  a  definite  time  and  place, 
and  the  basis  of  a  new  and  startling  faith. 

The  one  reality,  says  Mrs.  Eddy,  is  God, 
whose  other  name  is  Mind  or  Spirit.  "  God 
is  All-in-all."  "All  is  infinite  Mind  and  its 
infinite  manifestation."  "  Matter  is  unknown 
in  the  Universe  of  Mind."     "  What  seems  to 


no  Christian  Science 

be  matter  is  a  mortal,  material  sense  of  that 
which  is  spiritual  and  perfect."  "  Matter  and 
mortal  body  are  the  illusions  of  human  belief 
which  seem  to  appear  and  disappear  to  mortal 
sense  alone."  ^ 

One  may  agree  or  disagree  with  ]VIrs.  Eddy, 
but  one  can  not  in  this  case  fail  to  understand 
her  meaning.  She  means  exactly  what  she 
says,  that  matter  has  no  real  existence. 

Before  Mrs.  Eddy's  day,  metaphysical  dis- 
cussion of  the  nature  of  the  universe  was  re- 
garded as  mere  theorising.  It  was  academic; 
it  smelt  of  the  lamp.  It  was  for  the  class-room 
and  the  seminar.  It  was  not  brought  out  into 
the  open.  No  one  essayed  to  reduce  it  to  the 
terms  of  everyday  experience.  The  utmost 
that  even  Hegel,  most  inclusive  of  all  meta- 
physical idealists,  set  the  idealist  doing  was  to 
teach  the  world  to  understand  itself,  not  to 
reform  itself,  according  to  philosophy. 

Not  so  Mrs.  Eddy.  She  would  turn  theory 
into  practice.  She  would  have  her  followers 
live  up  to  her  philosophy.  Though  once  she 
does  advise  them  to  "  emerge  gently  from  mat- 
ter into  spirit,"  "  ordinarily,  she  would  have 
them  all  behave  as  though  there  were  no  mat- 
ter. Science  and  Health  is  one  long  battle 
cry  to  go  forth  in  the  spirit's  might  and  put 


The  Philosophy  m 

to  rout  the  things  men  f alsel}^  fancy  that  they 
see,  hear,  touch,  taste,  and  smell.  Mrs.  Eddy's 
ardent  understudies  crack  their  whips  at  the 
recalcitrant.  Mr.  JNIosley  says:  "What  God 
sees  once  he  sees  for  all  eternity,  and  sees  as 
perfect  as  well  as  perfectly."  ^  Mr.  Farlow 
bids  them  to  believe  that  "  the  demands  of 
truth  are  that  we  shall  at  once  be  all  that  God 
would  have  us."  ^  And  Mrs.  Eddy,  for  the 
encouragement  of  the  faint-hearted  who  find 
matter  a  stubborn  fact,  indissoluble  even  in  the 
crucible  of  Christian  Science,  pleads  guilty  at 
one  time  or  another  to  having  raised  the  dead, 
/  "  brought  out  one  apple  blossom  on  an  apple 
tree  in  January  when  the  ground  was  covered 
with  snow.  And  in  Lynn  demonstrated  in 
the  floral  line  some  such  small  things."  ^ 

Mrs.  Eddy  is  far-sighted.  She  sees  that 
the  differentiate  of  her  philosophy  is  its  im- 
mediate availability  in  the  world-struggle  with 
sin  and  pain.  She  realises  what  many  of  her 
followers  do  not  seem  to  realise,  that  it  is  the 
possible  practicability  of  her  idealism  which 
enables  it  to  challenge  the  attention  of  the 
world.  She  understands  what  even  some  of 
her  official  spokesmen  give  evidence  of  late  of 
misapprehending,  that  to  stand  the  strain  of 
criticism,  growing  every  year  more  trenchant 


112  Christian  Science 

the  entire  philosophy  of  Christian  Science 
must  abide  by  its  obvious  meaning  without 
such  quahfication  as  one  finds  in  Human  Life 
for  August. 

Make  it,  hke  all  other  forms  of  idealism, 
merely  speculation,  and  Christian  Science  be- 
comes at  once  much  ado  about  nothing.  Re- 
gard it  as  logomachy  and  Mrs.  Eddy  takes  her 
place,  the  only  woman,  in  the  long  line  of  the 
bespectacled  philosophers  who  have  speculated 
to  little  purpose  on  the  evolution  of  human 
thought.  Divorce  it  like  its  fellow  systems 
from  daily  living,  and  Christian  Science  will 
shrivel  up  to  a  brief  paragraph  in  the  Encyclo- 
pcedia  Britannica, 

This  is  the  end,  and  there  is  no  other,  of  all 
the  tangled  threads  of  Christian  Science  meta- 
physics which  many  a  critic  has  endeavoured 
to  untangle  only  to  entangle  them  the  more. 
This  is  the  end  the  reader  is  to  seize  and  gently 
pull  if  he  would  see  the  tangles  disappear  and 
the  threads  all  lengthen  out  to  one. 

Then  he  will  clearly  apprehend  why  Chris- 
tian Science  is  something  wholly  different  in 
its  philosophy  from  historic  Christianity,  which 

looks  out,  on  the  entire  sum  of  facts,  in  all  the 
reality  with  which  they  enter  into  our  vital  ex- 
periences.    It  sees  the  solid  earth  in  its  undeniable 


The  Philosophy  113 

activity.  It  sees  humanity  in  its  unmistakable 
flesh  and  blood.  It  sees  a  vast  physical  universe 
spreading  away  into  illimitable  regions  of  space  and 
time,  moving  under  inexorable  laws,  held  together 
into  a  single  ordered  mass,  by  the  stress  of  co-ordi- 
nated forces.  All  this  it  sees,  it  accepts.  It 
denies  nothing,  it  refuses  nothing.  Whatever  a 
valid  experience  ratifies,  this  is,  for  it,  real.^ 

Historic  Christianity  accepts  things  as  they 
are,  and  is  still  as  idealistic  as  Christian  Sci- 
ence. Things  may  have  all  the  objectivity 
they  seem  to  have  and  yet  be  forms  of  thought 
constructed  by  the  mind  and  needed  for  the 
mind  to  work  with  and  to  work  upon.  Things 
may  respond  to  all  the  tests  the  senses  make 
and  still  be  but  expressions  of  the  Universal 
Mind.  There  is  no  reason  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  why  God,  who  is  all  Spirit  and  all  Mind, 
must  be  limited  in  His  range  of  choice  of  spirit 
forms.  There  is,  at  any  rate,  no  philosophical 
necessity  for  finiteness  to  set  metes  and  bounds 
to  Infinitude  and  presuming  upon  the  posses- 
sion of  spiritual  senses,  decide  offhand  what 
Infinitude  must  always  do.  Hamlet's  w^ord 
to  Horatio  is  worthy  the  consideration  also  of 
the  Christian  Scientist: 

"  There    are    more    things    in    heaven    and    earth, 
Horatio, 
Than  are  dreamt  of  in  your  philosophy." 

8 


114  Christian  Science 

The  reader  will  apprehend,  besides,  why 
Christian  Science  is  not  really  scientific. 
Science  has  no  place  for  the  finality  that  Mrs. 
Eddy  has  always  claimed  for  her  revelation 
of  1866  but  has  been  disproving  all  these  years 
by  the  continuous  revision  ^  of  her  monu- 
mental book.  Science  recognises  no  such 
principle  as  Mr.  Farlow  would  establish  in  his 
exhortation  to  become  "  at  once  all  that  God 
would  have  us  " ;  for  the  essence  of  science  is 
the  gradual  development  for  which  evolution 
stands  and  which  Jesus  illustrated  in  his  words, 
"first  the  blade,  then  the  ear;  after  that  the 
full  corn  in  the  ear."  And  those  who  would 
be  Christian  Scientists  and  true  scientists  at 
one  and  the  same  time  may  well  regard  the 
godly  counsel  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge:  "if  they 
will  let  go  their  anchorage,  and  sail  on  in  a 
spirit  of  fearless  faith,  they  will  find  an 
abundant  reward,  by  attaining  a  deeper  in- 
sight into  the  Divine  Nature,  and  a  wider  and 
brighter  outlook  over  the  destiny  of  man."  ^ 

But  what  is  the  objection  to  Mrs.  Eddy's 
theory  that  the  one  absolute  God,  who  is 
omnipotence,  truth,  justice,  love,  has  so  con- 
structed us  that  we  see  nothing  which  we  think 
we  see,  that  through  no  fault  of  our  own  we 
seem  to  be  involved  in  a  universal  lie  which 


The  Philosophy  115 

ISIrs.  Eddy  has  built  up  a  church  to  dissipate? 
The  objection  is  manifestly  this,  that  while  we 
all  may  have  one  opinion  or  another  about  the 
composition  of  the  universe,  while  many  of  us 
may  hold  with  her  to  some  form  of  ideahsm, 
while  some  of  us  may  agree  with  her  that  spirit 
and  not  matter  is  both  original  and  ultimate 
in  the  universe,  we  have  each  day  to  act  as 
though  matter  existed. 

For  all  practical  purposes  in  the  action  or 
in  the  hfe  of  man,  matter  does  exist.  Bridge- 
building,  house-building,  nation-building, 
prove  it  to  be  no  figment  of  imagination.  We 
may  all  agree  to  agree  with  Mrs.  Eddy  that 
there  is  no  matter,  that  matter  is  an  idle  dream. 
But  our  very  agreement  makes  matter  cease 
to  be  a  dream.  For  as  Kant  long  since  ob- 
served: "A  dream  which  all  dream  together, 
and  which  all  must  dream,  is  not  a  dream  but 
a  reality." 

There  are  signs  of  late  that  some  of  JNIrs. 
Eddy's  recognised  interpreters  are  uneasy  at 
the  turn  the  argument  is  taking  at  the  hands 
of  critics.  Mr.  Farlow  went  the  length  three 
years  ago,  of  admitting  that  "  Christian 
Science  includes  not  only  a  presentation  of  the 
true  spiritual  state  which  is  to  be  attained,  but 
also  a  wise  consideration  and  disposition  of  our 


it6  Christian  Science 

present  erroneous  material  condition.  Call 
them  what  we  please — delusions  or  realities — 
we  find  ourselves  confronted,"  he  admits, 
"  with  limitations,  discords,  and  evils — things 
which  can  not  be  ignored."  ^  Only  the  other 
day,  he  was  at  great  pains  to  explain  in  reply 
to  a  sermon  preached,  April  22,  1907,  in 
Indianapolis — for  Mr.  Farlow's  watchful  eye 
notes  every  criticism  press  and  pulpit  the  land 
over  offer  his  cause — that  Christian  Science 
"  does  not  deny  that  pain  and  sin  are  real  to 
material  sense."  Another  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  of- 
ficial interpreters,  Mr.  Bicknell  Young,  goes 
a  little  farther.  He  said,  October  8,  1906,  in 
Springfield,  Massachusetts,  that  Christian 
Scientists  in  general  do  not  deny  the  reality  of 
things.  "  They  affirm,"  he  says,  "  the  eternal 
existence  of  all  things." 

And  so  Mrs.  Eddy's  thesis  of  the  unreality 
of  matter  would  seem  to  be  wounded  in  the 
house  of  its  friends.  But  the  hurt  is  only  in 
the  seeming.  Neither  means  what  his  words 
imply  to  those  uninitiated  in  Christian  Science 
dialectics.  Each  seizes  on  a  word  which  every- 
body understands  generically  and  gives  to  it 
specialised  significance.  Each  has  in  mind  a 
subtle  distinction  between  reality  and  actuality 
which  people  never  make  in  ordinary  discourse. 


The  Philosophy  117 

Each  gives  to  reality  the  spiritual  meaning 
which  is  but  one  of  many  meanings  it  may 
have,  and  when  using  it  of  matter  thinks  of 
matter  not  as  matter  is  to  ordinary  minds  but 
as  it  is  to  Christian  Scientists, — spirit  and  not 
matter. 

To  the  average  man  anything  is  real  of  which 
his  everyday  experience  gives  valid  testimony. 
Anything  is  real  to  him  which  cannot  be  ex- 
plained away,  which  stays  where  it  is  put  in 
time  or  space,  which  everybody  accepts  in  the 
same  sense  as  anybody.  When,  therefore, 
Mr.  Young  and  Mr.  Farlow  begin  these  days 
to  talk  of  things  as  though  things  were  real, 
the  average  man  takes  notice  and  begins  to 
think  he  apprehends.  But  just  as  apprehen- 
sion, happy  and  expectant,  passes  into  satis- 
fying comprehension,  Mr.  Farlow  disappears 
in  a  mist  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  making  about  the 
difference  between  the  senses  of  the  body  and 
the  senses  of  the  mind,  and  Mr.  Young  re- 
solves "  things  into  thoughts  "  existent  only  in 
the  mind  of  God.  And  so,  confused,  and 
dazed,  the  uninitiated  in  Christian  Science 
metaphysics  are  led  round  by  a  back  way  once 
more  into  Mrs.  Eddy's  main  travelled  road  of 
the  "  unreality  of  things." 

Now  one  of  two  things  is  irrefutably  true: 


ii8  Christian  Science 

either  Christian  Science  spokesmen,  in  order 
to  deceive  the  unwary  and  untrained,  pur- 
posely argue  in  a  circle,  or  else  they  are  trying 
to  account  for  themselves  in  a  situation  in 
which  there  are  spiritual  elements  playing 
round  them  which  they  do  not  understand  and 
which  therefore  they  cannot  make  quite  clear  to 
others.  Personally,  I  would  gladly  believe  the 
latter  of  them.  But  I  cannot  understand  why 
through  the  w^ords  and  writings  of  Christian 
Scientists  often  ring  impeachments  of  the  sin- 
cerity, intelligence,  and  studiousness  of  those 
outside  the  fold  who  want  to  know  the  truth, 
whatever  it  may  be,  about  the  faith  and  its 
founder,  and  who  intend,  at  whatever  cost, 
to  have  their  questions  answered  or  else  to 
know  the  reason  why. 

But  Mrs.  Eddy  and  her  spokesmen  hint 
that  the  real  reason  why  we  do  not  see  things 
as  they  see  them  as  thoughts  in  the  INIind  of 
God  is  that  we  lack  what  they  have — Soul 
senses,  Spirit  senses.  Mind  senses. 

What  we  term  the  five  physical  senses  [Mrs.  Eddy 
states],  are  simply  beliefs  of  mortal  mind  .  .  . 
the  avenues  and  instruments  of  human  error,  which 
correspond  with  it.  .  .  .  Christian  Science  sus- 
tains, with  immortal  proof,  the  impossibility  of  any 
material  sense,  and  defines  these  so-called  senses  as 
mortal  beliefs,  whose  testimony  can  neither  be  true 


The  Philosophy  119 

of  man  nor  his  Maker.  .  .  .  Mind  alone  possesses 
all  faculties,  perception,  and  comprehension;  there- 
fore mental  endowments  are  not  at  the  mercy  of 
organisation  and  decomposition.  Otherwise  the  very 
worms  could  unfashion  man.  If  it  were  possible 
for  the  real  senses  of  man  to  be  injured,  Soul  could 
reproduce  them  in  all  their  perfection;  but  they 
cannot  be  disturbed,  since  they  exist  as  Mind,  not 
matter.  .  .  .  Neither  age  nor  accident  can  inter- 
fere with  the  Soul's  senses  and  there  are  no  other 
real  senses. ^^ 

Here,  at  last,  one  is  inclined  to  make  the 
frank  admission  that  JNIrs.  Eddy  has  had  some- 
thing very  like  a  revelation.  But  no.  Soul 
senses  are  old  friends.  Kant  knew  them. 
Emerson's  address  on  "  Nature  "  in  1838  led 
to  their  adequate  discussion.  ^^  Quimby  was 
familiar  with  them ;  for  in  a  manuscript  the  au- 
thor has  seen,  dated  INIarch,  1861,  a  year  and 
a  half  before  Mrs.  Eddy  paid  her  first  visit  to 
Quimby,  he  speaks  of  man's  true  senses  as 
"  spiritual "  and  potentially  free  from  the 
body.^^  In  the  manuscript,  also,  which  Mrs. 
Eddy  used  at  Stoughton  and  attributed  to 
Quimby  there  is  a  paragraph  about  soul 
senses.  And  so  we  find  Mrs.  Eddy  once  more 
in  the  wake  of  P.  P.  Quim^by,  learning  after 
him,  probably  from  him  in  one  of  their  many 
talks,  another  of  the  essentials  to  her  theory. 


I20  Christian  Science 

But  what  does  JNIrs.  Eddy  mean  by  soul 
senses?  She  means  evidently  spiritual  intui- 
tions. Why  not,  then,  say  so  frankly?  Why 
invent  a  new  vocabulary  when  the  old  is  ade- 
quate? Why  not  speak  plain  English  like  the 
rest  of  us?  Why  write  like  the  young  student 
in  the  theological  seminary,  who  brought  to  his 
instructor  an  essay  on  the  Book  of  Exodus  in 
which  he  said,  "  In  the  midst  of  all  this  tumult 
the  son  of  Amram  stood  unmoved  "?  "  Whom 
do  you  mean,"  inquired  the  instructor,  "  by  the 
son  of  Amram?  "  "  I  mean  Moses,  sir,"  was 
the  reply.  "  Well,  if  you  mean  Moses  why  do 
you  not  say  Moses?  " 

Is  there  no  one  bold  enough  to  point  out  to 
Mrs.  Eddy  the  absurdity  of  claiming  that  the 
race's  spiritual  intuitions  are  given  to  the 
Christian  Scientists  alone?  Is  there  no  one 
brave  enough  to  remind  her  that  four  years  be- 
fore her  book  appeared  Professor  Tyndall  was 
showing  in  his  essay  on  The  Scientific  Uses  of 
the  Imagination  how  helpful  insight  is  to  sci- 
ence? Is  there  no  one  venturesome  enough  to 
recall  to  her  memory  that  ten  years  before 
twenty-six  of  her  admiring  friends  invited  her 
to  start  a  church  in  Boston  and  become  its 
preacher,  Phillips  Brooks  began  at  Trinity 
Church,  scarcely  more  than  a  stone's  throw 


The  Philosophy  121 

from  Mrs.  Eddy's,  that  prophetic  ministry 
which  for  many  years  was  to  the  intuitions  of 
countless  thousands  a  continuous  unveiling  of 
the  glories  that  shall  be  in  heaven  and  earth? 
Is  there  no  one  divinely  daring  enough  to  teach 
her  the  comprehensive  truth  that  all  men  being 
sons  of  God  have  the  spiritual  senses  Mrs. 
Eddy  talks  so  much  about,  and  use  them  not 
to  deny  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  matter, 
but  to  transfigure  and  suffuse  and  make  sacra- 
mental this  matter  which  our  spirit  taber- 
nacles in  until  "  our  flesh  being  subdued  to  the 
Spirit,  we  may  ever  obey  Thy  Godly  motions 
in  righteousness,  and  true  holiness,  to  thy 
honour  and  glory  who  livest  and  reignest  with 
the  Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  one  God, 
world  without  end?  "  ^^ 

It  is  so  pathetic.  Shut  off  from  that  world 
of  sense  which  she  vows  does  not  exist,  an 
aged  woman  who  has  had  no  superior  among 
the  women  of  recent  times  in  the  power  to  im- 
press herself  upon  the  age  in  which  she  lives 
treads  round  and  round  the  narrow  circle  of 
her  vain  delusion  that  things  are  not,  and  yet 
for  practical  purposes  they  must  be  for  a 
while  at  least,  denying  the  existence  of  the  com- 
fortable house  she  lives  in  and  yet  is  willing  to 
live  in  until  she  dies,  disputing  the  materiality 


122  Christian  Science 

of  the  coal  that  keeps  her  warm  even  though 
one  of  her  disciples  does  admit  that  possibly 
it  is  real  as  long  as  the  body  it  protects  from 
the  New  England  blasts  seems  to  be,  denying 
that  "  food  is  what  sustains  life  "  and  yet  of 
course  indulging  just  as  usual  in  her  tea  and 
toast  and  comforting  herself  with  the  reflec- 
tion that  it  would  be  "  foolish  to  stop  eating 
until  we  gain  more  goodness,"  disavowing  if 
she  is  truly  logical  that  the  monumental  book 
exists,  the  sale  of  which  at  a  price  prohibitive 
to  the  poor  has  lifted  her  from  poverty  and 
placed  her  in  the  list  of  milHonaires,  and  yet 
issuing  the  following  instructions  to  her  fol- 
lowers: "  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  all  Christian 
Scientists  to  circulate  and  to  sell  as  many  of 
these  books  [she  refers  also  to  her  other  books] 
as  they  can.  If  a  member  of  the  First  Church 
of  Christ,  Scientist,  shall  fail  to  obey  this  in- 
junction it  will  render  him  liable  to  lose  his 
membership  in  this  church."  ^^ 

It  is  more  pathetic  yet  to  turn  from  Mr. 
Farlow's  earnest  effort  to  square  Christian 
Science  with  common  sense  in  his  admission 
that  there  are  "  things  which  cannot  be  ig- 
nored," and  from  Mr.  Young's  strange  dialec- 
tic that  Christian  Scientists  do  not  "  deny  the 
reality    of    things,"    to    Mrs.    Eddy's    cruel, 


,  The   Philosophy  123 

crushing,  and  conclusive  sentence  that  "  no- 
thing possesses  reality  or  existence  except 
God."  ^'  Of  Mrs.  Eddy  and  her  loyal  inter- 
preters one  is  compelled  to  observe  in  calm 
and  altogether  kindly  mood  that,  wholly  apart 
from  the  merits  and  demerits  of  the  cause  they 
represent,  "  They  cannot  go  on  forever  stand- 
ing on  one  leg,  or  sitting  without  a  chair,  or 
walking  with  their  feet  tied,  or  grazing  hke 
the  stags  of  Tityrus  in  the  air."  ^^  They  must 
get  together  and  keep  together  in  the  public 
mind  if  they  would  win  the  world  to  Christian 
Science. 

There  is  one  criticism  of  the  philosophy  of 
Christian  Science  to  which  no  answer  can  be 
given.  With  the  rest  of  us,  Mrs.  Eddy  agrees 
that  God  is  infinite.  Being  infinite,  God  is, 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  unbounded  by  the 
limitations  which  time  sets  to  our  finiteness. 
God  is  timeless,  and  the  psalmist  therefore 
spoke  well  within  the  truth  when  he  remarked 
that  "  A  thousand  years  in  Thy  sight  are  but 
as  yesterday."  So  careless  is  God  of  time  that 
He  takes  a  summer  for  the  painting  of  the 
petal  of  the  rose,  ten  thousand  years  or  more 
to  make  a  ton  of  coal,  and  no  one  knows  how 
many  million  years  to  make  man  out  of  pri- 
mordial protoplasm. 


124  Christian  Science 

It  would  be,  perhaps,  enough  to  prove  my 
point  were  I  to  remind  the  reader  that  a  revela- 
tion which,  like  Mrs.  Eddy's,  purports  to  cover 
every  human  interest,  leaves  no  room  for  the 
thought  of  evolution.  But  I  would  take  no 
advantage.  I  turn  rather  to  the  efforts  made 
in  recent  years  to  explain  away  Mrs.  Eddy's 
earlier  claims  for  both  originality  and  finality 
in  the  revelation  she  received.  One  instance 
is  adequately  illustrative.  Mr.  Farlow  inci- 
dently  admits,  even  in  the  face  of  Mrs.  Eddy's 
frequent  hints  that  between  her  and  Christ 
there  has  been  no  historic  link,  that  possibly 
there  have  been  sages  before  the  sage  of  Pleas- 
ant View,  and  that  while  Christian  Science  is 
"  the  direct  emanation  of  the  Divine  intelli- 
gence as  opposed  to  mere  belief,  yet  its  advent 
has  been  the  result  of  development."  ^^  But 
set  no  store  by  such  admissions.  Mr.  Farlow 
follows  Mrs.  Eddy  all  the  way  even  when  his 
words  would  sometimes  seem  to  lead  another 
way.  And  to  know  the  attitude  of  Christian 
Science  toward  evolution  we  must  turn  to  Mrs. 
Eddy  before  we  listen  to  her  representatives. 

Mrs.  Eddy  does  say: 

Perfection  is  seen  and  acknowledged  only  by  de- 
grees, in  the  midst  of  imperfection.  The  ages  must 
slowly  work  np  to  it.     How  long  it  mnst  be  before 


The   Philosophy  125 

we  arrive  at  the  demonstration  of  Scientific  Being, 
no  man  knoweth, — not  even  the  Son,  but  the 
Father;  but  one  thing  is  certain,  that  error  will  con- 
tinue its  delusions  until  the  final  goal  of  gladness  is 
assiduously  earned  and  won.^^ 

This  looks  like  evolution,  but  it  is  not  evolu- 
tion. The  process  to  which  she  refers  is  in- 
tellectual, not  cosmic.  It  is  nothing  but  a  rather 
turgid  statement  that  it  will  take  a  while  to 
convert  all  the  world  to  Christian  Science, — 
an  obvious  truth. 

At  a  time  when  modification  of  the  views  of 
Darwin  and  Weismann  has  not  weakened  but 
rather  strengthened  the  fundamental  concept 
of  evolution,  Mrs.  Eddy  goes  merrily  along 
her  way  disclosing  in  such  words  as  these  her 
ignorance  of  the  very  alphabet  of  evolution: 
"  Theorising  about  man's  development  from 
mushrooms  to  monkeys  and  from  monkeys  to 
men,  amounts  to  nothing  in  the  right  direction, 
and  very  much  in  the  wrong."  ^^ 

It  would  not  be  fair,  however,  to  leave  this 
aspect  of  our  theme  without  an  effort  to  find 
in  Mrs.  Eddy's  entourage  some  who  know 
more  than  she  concerning  evolution.  Mr.  Joel 
Rufus  Mosley  is  a  young  man.  He  has  had 
in  Chicago,  Harvard,  and  Heidelberg  train- 
ing in  philosophy.     He  writes  with  charm  and 


126  Christian  Science 

clearness,  and  his  writings  are  gladly  read. 
He  tells  us,  in  The  Cosmopolitan  for  July, 
1907,  that 

Christian  Science  reveals  that,  since  God  is  above 
the  finite  sense  of  time  and  space  and  all  limitations 
of  ignorance  and  evil,  since  he  is  unchanging  in  his 
perfection  of  being,  action,  and  thought,  whatever 
he  sees  once,  he  sees  forever.  The  universe,  includ- 
ing man,  is,  therefore,  always  perfect  in  the  mind  of 
God ;  as  God  made  it,  sustains  it,  sees  it,  as  it  really 
exists. 

This  means,  if  it  means  anything,  that  there 
is  in  the  Christian  Science  scheme,  no  place  for 
the  evolution  of  the  universe.  Others,  but  not 
Christian  Scientists,  may  therefore  sing: 

"  A  fire  mist  and  a  planet,  a  crystal  and  a  cell ; 
A  jellyfish  and  saurian,  and  caves  where  the  cave 

men  dwell. 
Then  a  sense  of  law  and  beauty,  and  a  face  turned 

from  the  clod; 
Some  call  it  evolution,  and  others  call  it  God.'^ 

But  Christian  Science  has  its  mathematician 
as  well  as  its  philosopher.  The  First  Reader 
of  the  Church  at  Concord,  Professor  Herman 
S.  Hering,  was  once  a  member  of  the  mathe- 
matical staff  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University. 
He,  therefore,  should  have  working  know- 
ledge of  the  theory  of  evolution,  and  he  says: 


The  Philosophy  127 

It  is  claimed  by  some  opponents  that  because 
Christian  Scientists  do  not  walk  on  the  water,  turn 
water  into  wine,  multiply  loaves  and  fishes,  as  did 
Jesus,  and  because  they  still  have  to  do  with  matter 
at  every  turn,  the  doctrines  of  Christian  Science, 
especially  that  of  the  unreality  of  matter,  must  be 
fallacious.  Such  an  argument  is  like  that  which 
declares  that  because  a  schoolboy,  who  is  just  learn- 
ing to  add  and  subtract,  cannot  work  out  a  problem 
in  cube  root,  therefore  the  claims  of  greater  pos- 
sibilities in  the  science  of  mathematics  are  falla- 
cious, and  the  schoolboy  is  badly  deceived  by  the 
promise  of  being  able  eventually  to  solve  such 
higher  problems.^^^ 

These  words,  too,  mean  what  they  seem  to 
mean,  that  evolution  is  not  of  matter  but 
merely  in  the  mind  of  those  who  are  develop- 
ing into  consciousness  of  the  unreality  of  mat- 
ter. He  says,  too,  as  clearly  as  analogy  can 
speak,  that  the  time  is  coming  when  Christian 
Scientists  will  be  able  to  w^histle  matter  down 
the  wind  of  life.  It  is  all  of  a  piece  with  INIr. 
Farlow's  charge  that  we  "  at  once  be  all  that 
God  would  have  us." 

Denying,  then,  that  God  does  follow  the 
time-method  of  evolution  in  His  work,  insist- 
ing that  because  a  thing  is  true  it  must  neglect 
all  time  conditions  except  perhaps  a  few  brief 
centuries,  Christian  Science  sets  itself  against 
the  biggest  truth  that  man  has  ever  learned 


128  Christian  Science 

about  God's  way  of  working.  All  these  ages 
past,  since  Anaxagoras  was  trying  to  pluck 
out  the  secret  of  eclipses,  and  Job  on  his  ash- 
heap  was  justifying  to  himself  the  ways  of  God 
to  man,  men  have  meditated  on  the  problems 
of  the  universe,  assuming  at  the  outset  that 
however  God  may  work,  He  must  have  all  the 
time  He  wants  to  do  His  work. 

As  in  these  latter  days  men  have  come  to 
see  that  God's  method  is  invariably  that  of  evo- 
lution and  that  therefore  He  takes  more  time 
than  men  once  thought  necessary  for  Him  to 
do  his  work,  men  have  developed  such  a  respect 
for  God's  intelHgence  as  in  their  ignorance 
they  never  had  before.  More  than  this,  as 
normal  men  look  back  across  the  ages  and  see 
how  slowly  man  has  moved  upward,  working 
out  the  beast,  and  how  quickly  he  has  some- 
times fallen  back  into  his  native  beasthness, 
they  grow  righteously  impatient  with  a  scheme 
of  human  conduct  which  not  only  bids  man  act 
as  if  there  were  no  past  but  also  encourages 
him  to  ignore  the  plain  dictates  of  that  ordi- 
nary common  sense  to  which  society  (as 
Christian  Science  will  one  day  find  to  its  dis- 
comfiture) sometimes  owes  more  than  to  that 
mysterious  second  sight  of  which  Mrs.  Eddy 
speaks. 


The   Philosophy  129 

Mrs.  Eddy  may  conceivably  be  right,  the 
rest  of  us  wrong;  but  it  will  take  more  than 
her  "  final  revelation  "  of  1866  to  induce  repre- 
sentative men  like  Roosevelt  and  Taft,  Eliot 
and  Woodrow  Wilson,  Rainsford  and  George 
Gordon,  to  part  with  the  accumulated  know- 
ledge of  the  past  and  to  act  as  though  the  only 
things  worth  while  had  been  revealed  through 
the  ambiguous  pages  of  Science  and  Health. 
What  Ancrum  says  to  David  Grieve,  after  his 
return  from  the  far  country,  of  defiance  of 
conventions,  can  as  well  be  said  to-day  to 
those  who  without  a  critical  study  of  its  philo- 
sophy build  their  house  upon  the  sand  of 
Christian  Science: 

All  these  centuries  the  human  animal  has  fought 
with  the  human  soul.  And  step  by  step  the 
soul  has  registered  her  victories.  She  has  won 
them  only  by  feeling  for  the  law  and  finding  it — 
uncovering,  bringing  into  light,  the  firm  rocks  be- 
neath her  feet.  And  on  these  rocks  she  rears  her 
landmarks — marriage,  the  family,  the  State,  the 
Church.  Neglect  them,  and  you  sink  into  the 
quagmire  from  which  the  soul  of  the  race  has  been 
for  generations  struggling  to  save  you.  Dispute 
them !  overthrow  them, — yes,  if  you  can !  You  have 
about  as  much  chance  with  them  as  you  have  with 
the  other  facts  and  laws  amid  which  you  live — 
physical  or  chemical  or  biological.^i 


I30  Christian  Science 

Along  the  way  of  evolution  then,  I  draw  to 
my  indictment  of  Christian  Science  as  a  sys- 
tem of  philosophy.  I  charge  it  with  being 
nothing  less  than  philosophical  anarchy  con- 
cealed beneath  confusedness  of  thought  and 
ambiguity  of  words.  I  charge  it  with  pro- 
posing to  the  world  a  strange  theory  of  life 
which,  if  lived  up  to,  would  break  with  the  past 
in  thought  and  action,  disintegrate  institutions 
built  up  at  cost  incredible  of  life  and  limb,  and 
substitute  for  the  order  that  has  been  secured 
in  government,  industry,  morals,  and  religion, 
a  state  in  which  every  man  would  do  what 
seemed  right  in  his  own  sight,  wilfully  regard- 
less of  the  world  experience,  and  what  we  have 
gained  in  ages  past  would,  therefore,  all  be 
lost.^^ 

Is  my  indictment  too  severe?  Think 
clearly.  If  Mrs.  Eddy's  theory  that  there  is 
no  matter  in  the  universe  is  of  more  signifi- 
cance than  any  other  idealistic  theory  it  is  be- 
cause she  would  make  haste  to  turn  it  into 
practice.  Let  us  in  fancy  in  a  few  imaginable 
instances  act  upon  her  theory: 

Coming  up  the  street  a  moment  since,  I 
passed  the  police  station.  A  useless  burden 
on  the  city!  Since  there  is  nothing  in  the  uni- 
verse but  God  and  God  is  good,  there  is  no 


The    Philosophy  131 

criminal  in  jail  or  out.  Or  if  there  seems  to 
be,  the  criminal  is  labouring  under  a  delusion. 
"  Through  silent  argument,  convince  the 
mortal  of  his  mistake."  -^  That  is  Mrs.  Eddy's 
way,  if  she  is  logical. 

A  block  nearer  I  passed  a  drug  store,  whose 
contents  Mrs.  Eddy  characterises  as  substi- 
tutes for  the  dignity  and  potency  of  divine 
mind,  having  for  their  purpose  to  "  give 
death  and  the  grave  victory  over  man."  ^^ 
She  brushes  them  away  with  the  few  words, 
"  Mortal  mind  confers  the  only  power  a  drug 
can  ever  possess,"  ^^  and  casually  suggests  that 
her  third  husband  was  killed  by  "  arsenical 
poisoning  mentally  administered."  ^^  For  the 
doctors  she  has  sharper  words  than  for  the 
druggists.  "  Diplomas,"  she  reminds  them, 
"  no  more  confer  a  rightful  power  to  kill  peo- 
ple than  does  the  assassin's  steel."  ^^  "  Why 
support  the  popular  systems  of  medicine,"  she 
inquires,  "  when  the  physician  may  be  per- 
chance an  infidel,  and  lose  ninety-and-nine 
patients  while  Christian  Science  cures  its 
hundred?  "  ^^  As  though  this  were  not  enough, 
she  adds  that  it  is  the  doctors  who  "  are  flood- 
ing the  world  with  diseases,  because  they  are 
ignorant  that  the  human  mind  and  body  are 
one."     If  this  does  not  mean  what  it  seems 


132  Christian  Science 

to  mean  what  does  it  mean?  And  how  can 
Miss  Brookins  say  "  Christian  Scientists  have 
no  quarrel  with  the  medical  profession?  "  ^^ 

A  little  nearer  home  I  passed  the  Edwards 
Church,  representing  three  centuries  and  more 
of  struggle  for  the  right  to  worship  God  as  the 
individual  pleases.  Mrs.  Eddy's  writing  is  de- 
ficient in  the  saving  grace  of  humour.  But 
that  she  can  indulge  in  irony  is  evident  in  these 
words  about  the  churches  and  the  clergy: 
*'  One  of  the  forms  of  worship  in  Thibet  is  to 
carry  a  praying  machine  through  the  streets, 
and  stop  at  the  doors  to  earn  a  penny  by  grind- 
ing out  a  prayer;  whereas  civilisation  pays  for 
prayers  by  the  clergy  in  lofty  edifices.  Is 
the  difference  very  great  after  all?  "  ^^  Of  all 
for  which  the  Edwards  Church  stands,  she  can 
think  of  nothing  more  to  say  than  "  Worship- 
ping through  the  medium  of  matter  is  Pagan- 
ism." ^^  "  As  in  Jesus'  days,  tyranny  and 
pride  need  to  be  whipped  out  of  the  temple, 
and  humility  and  divine  science  welcomed 
in."  ^^  This  is  the  personal  contribution  of 
Mrs.  Eddy  to  Christian  unity. 

And  as  to  Smith  College  on  my  left,  that  is, 
according  to  Mrs.  Eddy's  theory,  an  evident 
absurdity.  As  we  shall  see  later,  sin  and  suf- 
fering are  to  Christian  Scientists  the  special 


The  Philosophy  133 

delusions  that  spring  out  of  the  great  delusion 
that  matter  exists.  If  sin  and  suffering  are 
delusions,  history  and  literature,  which  are  sat- 
urated with  men's  sins  and  sufferings,  are  de- 
luding. What  we  call  the  sciences,  too,  we 
may  neglect  as  "  built  on  the  false  hypotheses 
that  matter  is  its  own  lawgiver,  that  law  is 
founded  on  material  conditions."  ^^  Yet  the 
very  buildings  of  Smith  College  are  a  proof 
made  possible  by  that  form  of  matter  we  call 
money  that  matter  as  w^ell  as  spirit  is,  that 
God  does  work  sacramentally,  does  reveal 
Himself  to  us  through  other  books  beside  those 
of  Mrs.  Eddy,  that  in  spite  of  Mrs.  Eddy's 
dictum  that  "human  thought  never  projected 
the  least  portion  of  true  science,"  ^^  human 
thought  is  projecting  every  week  in  the  labora- 
tories of  Smith  College  not  Christian  Science 
but  true  science.  Mrs.  Eddy  would  not  tear 
the  buildings  down;  there  are,  of  course,  ac- 
cording to  her  theory,  no  buildings  to  tear 
down.  She  suggests  that  to  Christian  Science 
be  given  the  place  in  the  curriculum  which  is 
now  occupied  by  what  she  inaccurately  calls 
"  scholastic  theology  and  physiology."  ^^  But 
she  can  scarcely  hope  that  her  suggestion  will 
be  promptly  followed. 

Now  I  submit  in  all  sincerity  that  if  this 


134  Christian  Science 

is  not  in  essence  anarchy,  then  there  is  no  word 
in  the  Enghsh  language  with  which  to  de- 
scribe it. 

If  the  reply  is  made  that  Mrs.  Eddy  would 
not  apply  her  theory  at  once  in  every  instance, 
that  she  has  in  late  years  advised  her  followers 
to  obey  the  laws  concerning  contagious  dis- 
eases, to  leave  surgery  for  a  while  to  the  doc- 
tors, to  refrain  from  antagonism  of  the 
churches,  and  to  send  their  children  to  school; 
that  in  nowise  breaks  the  force  of  my  conten- 
tion. Whatever  time  allowance  Mrs.  Eddy 
permits  is  in  direct  contradiction  of  her  thesis 
that  there  is  no  matter  and  that  we  err  every 
time  we  act  as  though  matter  existed.  If  Mrs. 
Eddy  were  inclined  to  give  to  God  all  the  time 
He  needs  and  takes  to  work  by  the  law  of  evo- 
lution which  we  see  everywhere  in  operation, 
then  Christian  Science  would  simply  be  an  in- 
teresting speculation  bearing  in  no  way  on 
our  every-day  existence,  in  no  way  disturbing 
our  relationship  to  church  or  to  society,  and 
scarcely  worth  expression  in  a  new  sect  whose 
ultimate  effect  will  be  still  further  to  postpone 
the  happy  day  when  we  shall  be  "  all  of  one 
heart  and  of  one  soul,  united  in  one  holy  bond 
of  truth  and  peace,  of  faith  and  charity. 


>>  36 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  RELIGION  AND  THEOLOGY 

God  All-in-all — Principle  not  Personality — From  Panthe- 
ism into  Dualism — The  Trinity — Christian  Science  is 
the  Holy  Spirit — The  Incarnation  an  Exaggerated 
Nestorianism — Deifying  Mrs.  Eddy — Prayer  Declara- 
tion not  Petition — Abandoning  the  Sacraments — • 
Substitution  of  a  Breakfast  for  the  Lord's  Supper — 
Evil  no  Real  Existence — The  Absurd  Obsession  of 
Animal  Magnetism. 

THE  religion  of  Christian  Science  flows 
out  of  its  philosophy.  Lest  I  seem  to 
have  an  eye  more  for  faults  than  virtues,  let 
me  once  again  admit  the  merits  of  the  system. 
Christian  Science  is  in  spite  of  every  weakness 
a  stout  protest  against  materialism.  It  is,  as 
Mr.  Farnsworth  truly  says,  "  a  rehgio-philo- 
sophical  system  appearing  amidst  an  unphilo- 
sophical  people  of  materialistic  tendencies." 
To  the  philosophical  materialism  of  those  who, 
forgetting  that  there  may  be  transmissive  as 
well  as  productive  functions,  would  make 
thought  nothing  but  a  function  of  the  brain. 
Christian  Science  presents  a  vigorous  if  some- 

135 


136  Christian  Science 

what  incoherent  denial.     To  the  practical  ma- 
terialism  that   would   leave    God   out   of   all 
account  except  on  Sundays,  Christian  Science, 
though    often     strangely    inconsistent,     does 
/    steadily  reply  that   "  God  is   All-in-all "   on 
'^  week  days  as  on  Sunday.     Christian  Science 
C  does  save  many  from  their  lower  self.     It  does 
-  ♦  7  kad  many  to  a  larger  faith  in  God  and  a  closer 
V  walk  with  Him.     It  does  impart  to  many  a 
7   S power  and  poise,  serenity  and  joy  they  might 
"have  found  before  if  they  had  sought  them  dili- 
gently in  the  church  of  their  upbringing. 

But  as  a  religion — and,  like  Mrs.  Eddy,  we 
must  use  the  term  religion  loosely  to  include 
theology — Christian  Science  has  defects  as 
fundamental  as  we  found  a  while  ago  in  its 
philosophy,  and  the  first  of  these  appears  in 
the  consideration  of  the  Christian  Science  God. 
Unity  is  the  mind's  first  quest,  and  Mrs. 
Eddy  is  in  line  with  other  pilgrims  of  the  In- 
finite in  seeking  unity.  Unlike  many  of  those, 
however,  she  has  found  what  she  has  sought 
and  has  given  it  a  name.  "  Principle  "  she 
calls  it,  and  thus  she  answers  the  inquiry,  "  Is 
there  more  than  one  Principle?"  ''There  is 
not.  Principle  is  Divine,  one  Life,  one  Truth, 
one  Love."  ^  "  Principle  "  is  Mrs.  Eddy's  God 
and  she  has  many  synonyms  for  it:  "  God," 


The  Religion  and  Theology       137 

''  Mind,"     "  Spirit,"     "  Soul,"     "  Substance," 
"  Life,"  "  Truth,"  "  Love." 

"  Principle  "  in  her  theology  gathers  up  into 
itself  all  the  concepts  we  habitually  associate 
with  God,  except  the  most  important — per- 
sonality. Before  her  book  appeared  in  1875, 
she  was  telling  her  pupils,  as  two  of  them  in- 
form me,  that  they  could  make  no  progress  till 
they  had  banished  from  their  minds  the  thought 
of  God  as  person.  She  instructed  Richard 
Kennedy  "  to  lay  special  stress,"  in  healing 
patients,  on  the  impersonality  of  God.  This 
is  the  commanding  thought  that  rings  through 
the  first  chapter  of  the  first  edition  of  Science 
and  Healthy  and  in  the  third  edition  (1881)  she 
writes  with  confident  assurance  that  God  "  is 
not  a  person,  God  is  Principle."  ^  In  subse- 
quent editions,  while  the  word  "  person  "  oc- 
curs more  frequently,  it  is  on  "  Principle  "  that 
she  chiefly  depends.  In  No  and  Yes  she  says 
that  "  God  is  Love ;  and  Love  is  Principle, 
not  person."  In  Christian  Science  versus 
Pantheismj  she  draws  such  a  sharp  distinction 
between  principle  and  personality  as  practi- 
cally to  eliminate  personality  from  her  idea  of 
God.  And  JNIr.  Bicknell  Young  admits  out- 
right that  "  '  personal '  is  one  of  the  words  that 
has  hindei^ed."  ^ 


138  Christian  Science 

In  the  interest  of  clear  classification  Mrs. 
Eddy  finds  a  place  among  the  idealistic  pan- 
theists. But  she  does  not  feel  at  home  in  such 
companionship.  She  thinks  the  prefix  pan  is 
too  suggestive  of  the  "  mythological  deity  of 
that  name."  ^  She  says  that  pantheism,  is  an- 
nulled by  Christian  Science.  And  yet,  when 
called  upon  to  condense  her  system  into  an 
epigram  she  puts  it  thus,  "  God  is  All  in  all  "; 
and  then  allows  the  sentence  to  be  thus  re- 
versed. All  in  all  is  God.^  If  this  surprising 
proposition  differs  fundamentally  from  the 
test  sentence  of  all  pantheism,  "  God  is  all  and 
all  is  God,"  common  sense  will  be  slow  in  mak- 
ing the  discovery. 

Mrs.  Eddy  explains  in  some  detail  that 
"  God  is  not  in  the  things  He  hath  made."  ^ 
But  her  explanation  is  not  so  anti-pantheistic 
as  it  seems.  She  is  ever  telling  us  that  there 
are  no  things  for  God  to  be  in.  What  seem 
to  be  such  things  are  really  His  thoughts. 
"  God  is  the  all-inclusive  One,  Who  with  His 
thoughts,  ideas,  shadows,  constitutes  the  Uni- 
verse." "^  Even  man  has  not  the  volition  and 
the  self-activity  he  thinks  he  possesses.  He 
must  will  as  God  wills  and  act  as  God  acts. 
He  is  nothing  more  than  God's  reflection  in  the 
looking-glass    of    Christian    Science.     When 


The  Religion  and  Theology       139 

he  dares  to  think  that  he  is  more,  he  falls  below 
the  threshold  of  manhood  and  becomes  what 
JNIrs.  Eddy  calls  with  bated  breath  mere  "  mor- 
tal mind." 

Try  as  she  will,  Mrs.  Eddy  never  quite 
escapes  from  pantheism  except  to  stumble 
into  dualism  by  the  creation  of  the  indepen- 
dent activity  of  "  mortal  mind,"  which  has  no 
place  in  God  because  it  is  not  good.  Strange 
to  say,  Mrs.  Eddy's  philosopher-apologist, 
JVIr.  Mosley,  takes  the  plunge  along  with  her 
out  of  pantheism  into  dualism  and  pictures 
"  the  Immortal  Mind  and  its  universe  of  pure, 
perfect,  and  immortal  ideas  and  the  mortal 
mind  and  its  seeming  world  of  imperfections  " 
as  in  direct  opposition  to  each  other.  ^ 

Mrs.  Eddy's  pantheism  is  unnecessary,  and 
yet  its  origin  was  inevitable  in  a  mind  as  literal 
as  hers.  Quimby  often  spoke  of  God  as  prin- 
ciple. In  the  Quimby  manuscript  from  which 
for  several  years  Mrs.  Eddy  taught,  no  sen- 
tence is  more  startling  than  the  sentence  "  God 
is  Principle."  With  her  passion  for  the  novel 
and  bizarre  Mrs.  Eddy  gave  to  the  one  new 
thought  concerning  God  which  she  learned 
from  Quimby  an  importance  which  it  never 
had  perhaps  in  Quimby's  large  and  compre- 
hensive mind.     She  made  it  central  and  cen- 


■J 


I40  Christian  Science 

tripetal  in  her  theology.  She  exploited  it  to 
the  utmost  without  perceiving  until  recent 
years  the  plight  in  which  it  places  her  theology. 

Once,  in  1898,  Mrs.  Eddy  hints  that  God 
may  be  personal  "  if  the  term  personality,  as 
applied  to  God,  means  infinite  personality,'' 
and  Mr.  Farlow  in  1907  assures  the  Rev. 
Edgar  P.  Hill  that  Mrs.  Eddy  does  believe 
that  "  God  is  person  in  the  infinite  sense."  ^ 

But  our  difficulties  multiply.  For  more 
than  thirty  years  Mrs.  Eddy  has  been  solemnly 
asserting  that  in  1866  she  received  a  ''  final  ^^ 
revelation."  Now  this  ''final  revelation," 
which  was  finally  as  well  as  first  expressed  in 
1875,  in  Science  and  Health,  is  saturated  with 
the  thought  that  God  is  not  a  person.  In  the 
very  first  chapter  we  are  informed  that  "  God 
is  Principle,  not  person,"  that  Jesus  preached 
the  impersonality  of  God,  that  it  was  the  error 
of  believing  in  the  personality  of  God  that 
crucified  Jesus,  that  the  trouble  with  conven- 
tional Christianity  to-day  is  that  it  makes  God 
a  person  and  that  because  it  "  starts  from  per- 
son, instead  of  Principle,  it  is  not  the  truth," 
and  that  our  duty  in  the  premises  is  to  base 
our  opinions  on  principle  and  not  person. 

But  if  God  was  "  not  person  "  in  1875  He 
is  "  not  person  "  now.      JMrs.  Eddy  can  not 


The  Religion  and  Theology       141 

make  God  person  now  without  revision  of  her 
"  final  revelation  "  and  a  final  revelation  re- 
vised is  no  final  revelation.  Can  it  be  that 
Mrs.  Eddy's  understudies  are  engaged  in  the 
revision  of  the  revelation  she  received  in  1866? 
These  words  from  the  earnest  pen  of  JNIr.  Mat- 
tox  would  seem  to  point  that  way:  "Natu- 
rally, with  the  progress  of  information  and  the 
development  of  her  understanding,  she  might 
be  expected  to  amend  or  modify  her  views."  ^^ 
Why  "naturally"?  If  Science  and  Health 
is  to  be  so  amended  year  by  year  as  to  contra- 
dict one  year  what  it  said  in  earlier  years,  then 
it  will  take  its  place  among  the  books  of 
mortal  mind  whose  value  is  determined  by  in- 
trinsic worth  and  not  by  ""  final  revelation." 

If  Mrs.  Eddy  believes  in  1907  that  which  in 
1875  she  denied,  that  God  is  person  in  any 
sense  whatever,  the  way  to  make  clear  her 
change  of  heart  is  not  by  reading  into  princi- 
ple, which  she  usually  introduces  with  a  capi- 
tal letter,  the  self-conscious  content  of  per- 
sonality, which  she  seldom  or  never  intro- 
duces with  a  capital,  but  by  rewriting  the 
text-book  of  Christian  Science  in  the  interest 
of  personahty.  She  must  stop  speaking  of 
"  Principle  alone  "  ^^  as  reforming  the  sinner 
and  healing  the  sick.       She  must  allow  some 


142  Christian  Science 

place  for  pleading  as  well  as  declaration  in 
Christian  Science  prayer.  She  must  cease  to 
picture  Christ  as  a  bare  idea  in  the  Man  of 
Galilee ;  ^^  and  she  must  altogether  revise  this 
crude  conception  which  she  offers  of  the  Trin- 
ity: "Life,  Truth,  and  Love  constitute  the 
triune  person  called  God, — that  is,  the  triply 
divine  Principle,  Love.  They  represent  a 
trinity  in  unity,  three  in  one, — the  same  in  es- 
sence, though  multiform  in  office:  God  the 
Father;  Christ  the  spiritual  idea  of  sonship; 
divine  Science,  or  the  Holy  Comforter.  These 
three  express  in  divine  Science  the  threefold, 
essential  nature  of  the  infinite.  They  also  in- 
dicate the  divine  Principle  of  scientific  being, 
the  intelligent  relation  of  God  to  man  and  the 
universe."  ^^ 

Mrs.  Eddy  has  made  many  claims  for  Chris- 
tian Science,  but  this,  that  Christian  Science  is 
the  Holy  Spirit,  overtops  them  all.  It  puts 
too  heavy  a  strain  upon  credulity.  And  Dr. 
Fluno  does  not  lighten  the  strain  for  ordinary 
Christians,  wont  to  think  that  according  to 
promise  Jesus  sent  the  Comforter  to  His  be- 
reaved disciples,  by  making  what  must  seem 
to  many  the  irreverent  suggestion  that  "  a 
woman    .    .    .    brought  it  to  the  world."  ^^ 

Concerning    the    Incarnation,    ]\Irs.    Eddy 


The  Religion  and  Theology       143 

thinks  more  loosely  than  usual.  The  early 
Church  was  ever  trying  to  determine  how 
Jesus  could  be  at  the  same  time  God  and  man. 
The  necessity  to  exclude  dualism  from  all 
thought  about  the  personality  of  Jesus,  and  to 
establish  for  all  time  his  oneness,  was  keenly 
felt.  The  early  councils  at  Nic^ea,  Constanti- 
nople, Ephesus,  and  Chalcedon  were  called 
for  the  consideration  and  determination  of  one 
aspect  or  another  of  this  question.  But  of 
these  and  of  their  significance  Mrs.  Eddy  ap- 
parently has  no  knowledge.  As  though  the 
Council  of  Ephesus  had  not  met  in  431,  she 
flings  the  Christian  Science  banner  to  the 
breeze  of  an  exaggerated  Nestorianism.  She 
writes,  "  Jesus  is  the  human  man  and  Christ 
is  the  divine,  hence  the  duality  of  Jesus,  the 
Christ."  ^' 

Whence  did  she  get  this  heresy?  Was  it  a 
feature  of  the  "  final  revelation  "  she  received 
in  1866?  Evidently  she  would  have  us  so  be- 
lieve. Christian  Science  as  a  whole  dates,  she 
says,  from  that  experience.  But  before  we 
put  the  subject  out  of  mind,  we  turn  back  again 
to  Quimby  and  his  views. 

What  was  Quimby 's  idea  of  Jesus  Christ? 
The  Quimby  manuscript  from  which  for  many 
years  Mrs.  Eddy  taught  is  not  so  clear  about 


144  Christian  Science 

the  Incarnation  as  concerning  God.  It  yields, 
however,  these  two  striking  sentences:  "  Jesus 
was  the  name  of  a  man  and  Christ  was  the 
truth."  "  Christ  was  the  Wisdom  that  knew 
Truth  dwelt  not  in  opinion."  But,  fortu- 
nately, there  are  other  Quimby  sources.  In 
the  first  volume  of  the  Quimby  manuscripts, 
dated  April,  1860,  two  and  a  half  years  be- 
fore Mrs.  Eddy's  first  visit  to  her  healer- 
teacher,  I  found  the  idea  first  mentioned.  A 
year  later,  in  1861,  Quimby  wrote  that  Jesus 
"  separated  himself  as  Jesus  the  man  of  opin- 
ions from  Christ  the  scientific  man."  Again, 
in  an  article  on  the  senses,  he  inquires:  "Are 
our  senses  mind?  I  answer.  No.  .  .  .  Mind 
and  senses  are  as  distinct  as  light  and  dark- 
ness, and  the  same  distinction  holds  good  in 
wisdom  and  knowledge,  Jesus  and  Christ. 
Christ,  wisdom,  and  (spiritual)  senses  are 
synonymous.  So  likewise  are  Jesus,  know- 
ledge, and  mind."  ^^ 

Here  is  Mrs.  Eddy's  dualistic  conception  of 
the  Incarnation  presented  as  clearly  as  she  her- 
self has  ever  stated  it.  The  question,  there- 
fore, instantty  arises,  is  this  a  case  of  literary 
parallelism?  Parallelisms  are  not  uncom- 
mon. They  occur,  however,  so  often  between 
Mrs.  Eddy  and  Quimby  that  the  reader  is  by 


The  Religion  and  Theology       145 

this  time  perhaps  as  sensitive  to  them  as  is  the 
present  writer.     Instinctively,  with  each  suc- 
cessive stage  of  the  unfolding  of  Mrs.  Eddy's 
theology,  he  looks  for  another  parallelism,  and 
he  seldom  looks  in  vain.     The  Mrs.  Eddy  of 
1862,  who  in  other  instances  contradicts  the 
Mrs.  Eddy  of  1907,  once  more  resolves  our 
difficulty.     In  the  very  letter  to  the  Portland 
Courier  in  which  she  hints  that  it  is  the  Christ 
in  Dr.  Quimby  which  enables  him  to  heal,  she 
refers  to  "  P.  P.  Quimby's  theory  of  Christ 
(not  Jesus)  "  ^^  and  proves  conclusively  that 
she  understands  it  by  professing  the  willing- 
ness and  ability  to  furnish  additional  informa- 
tion on  the  subject.     And  so  once  more  her 
Pauline  claim  that  "  I  neither  received  it  of 
man,  neither  was  I  taught  it,  but  by  the  revela- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ,"  fades  out  before  a  fact.'^ 
Mrs.  Eddy  is  not  unmindful  of  the  prob- 
lems raised  by  her   dualistic  theory,   derived 
from  Quimby.     She  justifies  it  thus:   "The 
divine  origin  of  Jesus  gave  him  more  than  hu- 
man power."  "^     At  the  same  time  she  reminds 
us  that  Jesus  was  not  one  with  the  Father, 
that  "  the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of 
the  world  "  was  slain  only  in  man's  mind,  not 
God's,  and  she  finally  disposes  of  the  question 
in  these  easy  words:  "This  dual  personality, 


146  Christian  Science 

of  the  unseen  and  the  seen,  the  spiritual  and 
material,  the  Christ  and  Jesus,  continued  un- 
til the  Master's  ascension;  when  the  human, 
the  corporeal  concept  or  Jesus  disappeared; 
while  his  invisible  self,  or  Christ,  continued  to 
exist  in  the  eternal  order  of  Divine  Science."  -^ 
Mrs.  Eddy's  followers,  however,  see  no 
problems.  They  see  only  her  solution  of  them. 
They  go  along  the  course  of  Christian  Science, 
belated  Nestorians,  holding  to  a  dualism  dis- 
carded by  the  Christian  Church  fifteen  hun- 
dred years  ago.  Before  me  as  I  write  there 
lie  in  manuscript  the  lecture  notes  of  a  Chris- 
tian Science  teacher  of  some  fifteen  years  ago 
in  which  I  find  these  unexpected  words: 
"  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  often  mistaken  for  the 
real  Christ."  Coming  one  Sunday  morning 
from  a  service  in  the  mother  Church  in  Boston, 
I  picked  up  on  the  street  a  stray  leaf  from  an 
unknown  student's  Quarterly,  and  on  the  mar- 
gin opposite  the  lesson  for  February  24th  I 
found  this  pencilled  comment:  "Jesus,  the 
human  man;  Christ,  God's  spiritual  idea." 
The  prophet  and  the  people  are  one  in  this  as 
in  all  other  things  in  Christian  Science,  and 
when  they  speak  of  Christ  they  speak  in  the 
light  of  the  following  amazing  sentence  which 
Mrs.  Eddy  gives  them:  "The  true  Logos  is 
demonstrably  Christian  Science." 


The  Religion  and  Theology        i47 

With  the  personality  of  Jesus  Christ  divided 
into  a  mere  man  called  Jesus,  who  was  not 
always  wise  and  never  had  as  high  a  revelation 
as  Mrs.  Eddy's,  and  a  mere  idea  called  Christ, 
who  reappears  to-day  in  Christian  Science 
and  no  other  faith,  Mrs.  Eddy  shows  a 
certain  familiarity  in  dealing  with  the  In- 
carnation which  is  disquieting  even  to  the 
unconventional. 

She  begins  with  the  assertion  that  she  was 
not  "  apart  from  God  "  in  writing  her  text- 
book. She  calls  it — and  not  the  Bible — 
"  God's  Book."  She  has  on  more  than  one 
occasion  given  the  impression  by  a  word  or 
deed  that  she  is  in  some  mysterious  way  un- 
like the  rest  of  us  in  kind  as  well  as  in  de- 
gree. She  once  claims  "  divine  origin." 
Those  who  are  closest  to  her  appear  in- 
stinctively to  take  their  cue  from  her.  As 
early  as  1882  the  little  band  of  Christian  Scien- 
tists at  Lynn  were  declaring  that  "  unless  we 
hear  Her  voice  we  do  not  hear  His  voice,"  and 
the  Christian  Science  Sentinel  reporting  Mrs. 
Eddy's  address  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the 
mother  Church  in  1899,  says,  "  it  was  not  then 
INIrs.  Eddy  whom  the  people  heard,  but  .  .  . 
the  voice  of  God."  "" 

No  later  than  last  December  its  editor, 
Mr.  Archibald  IVIcLellan,  sent  to  her  with  a 


148  Christian  Science 

suggestive  note  the  following  quotation  from 
Fiona  MacLeod's  The  Isle  of  Dreams: 

It  is  commonly  said  that,  if  he  could  be  heard, 
none  should  write  in  advance  of  his  times.  That  I 
do  not  believe.  Only,  it  does  not  matter  how  few 
listen,  I  believe  that  we  are  close  upon  a  great  and 
deep  spiritual  change.  I  believe  a  new  redemption 
is  even  now  conceived  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  the 
human  heart,  that  is  itself  as  a  woman,  broken  in 
dreams  and  yet  sustained  in  faith,  patient,  long- 
suffering,  looking  towards  home.  I  believe  that 
though  the  Reign  of  Peace  may  be  yet  a  long  way 
off,  it  is  drawing  near,  and  that  Who  shall  save 
us  anew  shall  come  divinely  as  a  Woman,  to  save 
us  as  Christ  saved  but  not  as  He  did,  to  bring 
with  her  a  sword.  But  whether  this  Divine  woman, 
this  Mary  of  so  many  passionate  hopes  and  dreams, 
is  to  come  through  mortal  birth,  or  as  an  immortal 
Breathing  upon  our  souls,  none  can  yet  know.^^ 

Years  ago  Mrs.  Eddy  was  identifying  her- 
self with  the  "  woman  clothed  with  the  sun  " 
in  the  book  of  Revelation,  and  remarking  that 
as  Jesus  represents  "  the  fatherhood  of  God  " 
so  the  woman  is  the  "  type  of  God's  mother- 
hood." "'  To  Mr.  Spofford  she  had  already 
written  that  her  revelation  of  God  was 
"  higher,  clearer,  and  more  permanent "  than 
the  Master's  had  been.  In  1898  she  passes  on 
to  this  subtle  explanation; 


The  Religion  and  Theology       149 

^'  The  impersonation  of  the  Spiritual  idea  had  a 
brief  history  in  the  earthly  life  of  our  Master;  but 
of  his  kingdom  there  shall  be  no  end;  for  Christ, 
God's  idea,  will  eventually  rule  all  nations  and 
peoples — imperatively,  absolutely,  finally — with  Di- 
vine Science.  This  immaculate  idea,  represented 
first  by  man  and  last  hy  womanij  will  baptize  with 
fire."  25 

While  she  has  never  said  outright,  perhaps, 
as  has  been  claimed  for  her,  that  she  is  "  the 
Way  to  God  "  and  Jesus  only  "  the  Way- 
shower,"  ^^  Mrs.  Eddy  is  over-fond  of  build- 
ing up  progressive  series  like  the  following: 
"  John  the  Baptist,  Jesus  the  Messiah,  the 
Woman  "type  of  God's  motherhood."  She 
is  past-mistress  in  that  art  of  irresponsible 
allusiveness  which  Newman  had  in  mind  in 
his  description  of  the  man  "  who  never  enun- 
ciates a  truth  without  guarding  himself  against 
being  supposed  to  exclude  its  contradictory." 
What  could  be  more  irresponsibly  allusive 
than  this? — "  No  person  can  take  the  individ- 
ual place  of  the  Virgin  INIary.  No  person  can 
compass  or  fulfill  the  individual  mission  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  No  person  can  take  the 
place  of  the  author  of  Science  and  Health,  the 
discoverer  and  founder  of  Christian  Science. 
Each  individual  must  fill  his  own  niche  in  time 
and  eternity."  ^^ 


I50  Christian  Science 

What  Mrs.  Eddy's  niche  in  time  is  to  be,  she 
says,  "  remains  to  be  proved."  She  is  more 
concerned,  it  seems,  to  carve  out  the  niche  she 
is  to  fill  in  all  eternity,  which,  as  she  realises, 
includes  time.  She  is  making  rapid  progress 
in  her  ambitious  task.  She  reports  in  1906 
that  God  is  "  divine  Principle — as  Life,  repre- 
sented by  the  Father;  as  Truth,  represented 
by  the  Son;  as  Love,  represented  by  the 
Mother."  '' 

Discovering  long  ago  that  Mrs.  Eddy 
likes  to  dwell  upon  the  incarnation  of  the 
motherhood  of  God,  that  she  had  even  sug- 
gested the  idea  in  her  version  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer  with  its  appalling  substitution  of  "  Our 
Father-lMother  God  "  for  "  Our  Father  which 
art  in  heaven,"  Mrs.  Eddy's  followers  began 
wdth  one  accord  to  call  her  "  Mother."  To 
hold  the  vantage  ground  thus  gained  in  her 
progressive  elevation,  INIrs.  Eddy,  in  the 
nineties,  designated  herself  as  "  Mother 
Mary  "  and  made  it  in  a  by-law  of  the  mother 
Church  "  an  indication  of  disrespect  for  their 
Pastor  Emeritus,  and  unfitness  to  be  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Mother  Church,"  for  Christian 
Scientists  to  give  the  title  Mother  to  anybody 
else  on  earth  except  one's  mother  in  the  flesh. 
Everybody  spoke  of  her  as  "  Mother."     She 


The  Religion  and  Theology       151 

sometimes  signed  herself  "  JNIother  INIary." 
The  President  of  the  National  Christian  Sci- 
ence Association  on  one  occasion  said,  "  There 
is  but  one  iNloses,  one  Jesus;  and  there  is  but 
one  Mary."  '^ 

All  this  deifying  went  on  not  without  some 
criticism  even  in  the  Christian  Science  camp. 
JNIrs.  Eddy,  therefore,  always  watchful  for 
any  sign  of  disaffection,  made  at  last  one  of 
her  sweeping  denials,  as  though  facts  could  be 
denied,  and  added  a  new  by-law  in  1903  to  her 
church  Manual  ordering  the  substitution  of 
the  word  Leader  for  Mother  in  Christian  Sci- 
ence terminology.  ^^  ]\lark  Twain's  quaint 
suggestion  that  there  would  never  have  been 
any  trouble  had  Mrs.  Eddy  signed  her  famous 
telegram  "  Mother  Baker  "  and  not  "  Mother 
Mary  "  lights  up  the  entire  situation.^^  Mrs. 
Eddj^  did  not  want,  and  can  not  bear,  to  be  re- 
garded as  an  ordinary  mother  of  her  spiritual 
children.  She  craves,  and  she  will  have,  a 
higher  type  of  motherhood. 

Under  pressure,  Mrs.  Eddy  has  now  and 
then  repudiated  the  parallelism  her  words  have 
constantly  been  tending  to  set  up  between  her- 
self and  Christ.  But  here,  again,  facts  are 
not  to  be  dismissed  by  mere  denial.  They  are 
too  numerous  and  too  indicative  to  be  denied. 


152  Christian  Science 

Even  in  her  early  teaching  days  she  fell  in- 
stinctively into  comparisons  of  herself  and 
Jesus,  and  never  to  her  own  disparagement. 

This  is  what  she  wrote  in  1877  to  a  favourite 
student : 

I  know  the  crucifiction  of  the  one  who  presents 
Truth  in  its  higher  aspect  will  be  this  time  through 
a  bigger  error,  through  mortal  mind  instead  of  its 
lower  strata  or  matter,  showing  that  the  idea  given 
of  God  this  time  is  higher,  clearer,  and  more  per- 
manent than  before.  My  dear  companion  and  fel- 
low labourer  in  the  Lord  is  grappling  stronger  than 
did  Peter  with  the  enemy,  he  would  cut  off  their 
hands  and  ears;  you  dear  student,  are  doubtless 
praying  for  me — and  so  the  Modern  Lawgiver  is 
upheld  for  a  time.^^ 

If  anything  was  needed  to  complete  the 
parallelism  between  herself  and  Jesus  it  was 
furnished  in  the  amusing  comparison  of  her 
un-Petrine  husband  with  the  impetuous  dis- 
ciple who  cut  off  the  ear  of  Malchus  when 
"  Out  of  the  woods  my  Master  came." 

Mrs.  Eddy  loved,  also,  to  play  the  role  of 
the  suffering  Messiah,  as  though  a  system 
which  has  no  room  for  suffering  could  need  a 
suffering  Messiah,  and  when  she  was  ill  or 
troubled,  as  frequently  occurred,  she  was  apt 
to  remind  her  students  that  Jesus,  too,  was 


The  Religion  and  Theology        153 

bruised  for  our  transgressions  and  bore  upon 
his  shoulders  the  world  pain.^^ 

In  1899  the  Christian  Science  Journal^ 
which  she  then  owned,  distinctly  made  the 
claim,  without  rebuke  from  her,  that  JNIrs. 
Eddy  was  the  equal  of  Jesus,  and  offered  elab- 
orate proofs  in  confirmation  of  the  same.^^ 
She  has  always  had  a  liking  for  the  words 
of  Jesus  in  discussing  her  own  personality, 
and  she  cannot,  even  in  1906,  attempt  the  solu- 
tion of  the  vexatious  servant  problem  by  mak- 
ing it  obligatory  on  any  Scientist  designated 
by  the  Board  to  become  her  servant  without 
adding,  in  the  by-laws  of  her  church,  the  re- 
minder that  "  Pie  that  loveth  father  or  mother 
more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me."  ^^ 

In  an  illustrated  book  called  Christ  and 
Christmas,  published  by  her  in  1894,  her 
parallelisms  reach  the  climax  of  audacity. 
One  picture  represents  Christ  with  a  halo  round 
his  head  raising  the  dead  from  a  modern  cof- 
fin. Another  represents  a  woman  with  a  halo 
round  her  head  raising  the  sick  from  a  bed. 
In  a  third  picture  the  two  are  brought  to- 
gether, and  there  is  a  halo  round  each  head. 
Jesus,  seated  on  a  stone,  holds  the  woman's 
right  hand  while  in  her  left  she  bears  a  scroll 
on  which  the  words  "  Christian  Science  "  ap- 


154  Christian  Science 

pear.  The  identity  of  the  woman  is  not  stated. 
Why  should  it  be?  The  very  arrangement 
of  the  hair  suggests  it.  The  following  limp 
verse  opposite  the  picture  leaves  nothing 
to  imagination: 

"  As  in  Blessed  Palestine's  hour,  so  in  our  age 
'T  is  the  same  hand  unfolds  His  power  and  writes 
the  page." 
If  the  picture  is  not  self -authenticating  then 
the  mystic  words  she  wTote,  when  the  usual 
criticism    came,    that    "  Scientists    sometimes 
take  things   too   seriously,"  ^^   and   her   with- 
drawal of  the  book  from  circulation  until  the 
storm  was  over,  will  suffice  to  convince  every- 
body except  those  who  can  not  be  convinced. 
But  specific  instances  are  not  needed  to  in- 
form the  conscientious  student  of   Christian 
Science  literature  that  INIrs.  Eddy  holds  her- 
self in   an   unmatched   relationship   to   Jesus 
Christ.     The  entire  sweep  of  her  teaching,  the 
attitude  toward  her  into  which  her  followers 
intuitively    drift,    the   progressive    mariolatry 
steadily  developing  in  spite  of  her  transparent 
protests,  and  the  painstaking  efforts  made  till 
recently  to  conceal  the  infirmities  of  her  ad- 
vancing    years,     are     sufficiently     indicative. 
And  if  in  spite  of  all  appearances,  as  one  near 
her  has  said,  there  is  no  warrant  for  the  in- 


The  Religion  and  Theology       155 

evitable  conclusion,  the  verdict,  however  well 
disposed  the  critic  is,  will  be  not  unlike  the 
homely  verdict  of  the  Western  jury,"  "  Not 
guilty,  but  don't  do  it  again." 

Whatever  may  be  Mrs.  Eddy's  relationship 
to  Jesus  Christ,  there  is  one  respect  in  which 
she  seems  to  set  herself  above  Him.  Jesus 
prayed  as  normal  people  pray.  He  prayed  to 
God  as  though  God  were  a  person.  He  prayed 
to  God  as  though  God  were  His  Father. 
He  pleaded  with  Him  for  specific  things,  con- 
ditioning each  prayer  with  its  "if  it  be  possi- 
ble." He  prayed  in  private  and  He  prayed 
in  public ;  and  He  taught  His  disciples  a  form 
of  common  prayer,  the  justification  and  illus- 
tration of  all  common  prayer  to-day.  Mrs. 
Eddy  accepts  the  fundamental  principle  of  all 
Jesus'  praying,  that  prayer  is  communion  with 
God.  But  her  acceptance  is  modified  by  the 
persistence  and  obtrusiveness  of  her  pantheism. 

How  can  one  pray  to  God  when  one  is  not 
sure  that  God  is  personal?  How  can  one 
pray  to  God  when  one  believes  that  "  prayer 
addressed  to  a  person  prevents  our  letting  go 
of  personality  for  the  impersonal  Spirit  to 
whom  all  things  are  possible  "?^^  How  can 
one  pray  to  God  when  one  holds  that  "  the 
habit  of  pleading  with  the  divine  Mind,  as  one 


156  Christian  Science 

pleads  with  a  human  being,  perpetuates  the 
belief  in  God  as  humanly  circumscribed, — an 
error  which  impedes  spiritual  growth"? 

While  the  Christian  Scientist  is  steadily 
moving  away  from  the  petitional  element  with 
all  that  it  involves  of  personal  relationship,  a 
scientific  Christian,  like  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  is 
ever  drawing  nearer  to  it  with  these  words: 
"  Through  prayer  we  admit  our  dependence  on 
a  higher  power,  for  existence  and  health  and 
everything  we  possess;  we  are  encouraged 
to  ask  for  whatever  we  need,  as  children  ask 
parents;  and  we  inevitably  cry  for  mercy 
and  comfort  in  times  of  tribulation  and 
anguish."  ^^ 

Nowhere  in  Mrs.  Eddy's  treatment  of  the 
subject  is  there  the  Gethsemane  element  of 
"  if  it  be  possible."  Audible  prayer  she  re- 
prehends. It  imparts  no  understanding.  It 
makes  involuntary  hypocrites.  It  brings  no 
lasting  benefit.  "  Lips  must  be  mute  and 
materialism  silent,  that  man  may  have  audi- 
ence with  Spirit,  the  divine  Principle,  Love, 
which  destroys  all  error."  ^^ 

Prayer  is  reduced  in  Christian  Science  to 
mathematical  exactness  by  the  substitution  of 
declaration  for  petition,  and  when  Christian 
Science  prayer  is  audible  at  all  it  is  not  prayer 


The  Religion  and  Theology       157 

but  merely  a  declaration  of  the  relationship  of 
Principle  (God)  to  its  idea  (man).  Clearer 
than  any  definition  Mrs.  Eddy  gives  of  Chris- 
tian Science  prayer,  is  one  offered  by  her  lect- 
urer, Miss  Brookins,  in  the  sentence,  "  An 
habitual  declaration  of  man's  unity  with  the 
divine  and  inexhaustible  Life,  the  real  and  in- 
destructible Substance,  the  infinite  and  omni- 
potent Love,  is  the  effectual  prayer  that 
availeth  much,  in  that  it  heals  and  redeems  the 
sin-sick  and  bodily  infirm  and  casts  out  all 
manner  of  evil."  ^^ 

There  is  one  barrier  in  the  way  of  the 
Christian  Science  theory  of  prayer.  The 
Lord's  Prayer  contains  all  the  elements  which 
Mrs.  Eddy  says  prayer  should  not  have.  It 
was  intended  to  be  audible.  At  least  it  was 
in  audible  use  in  the  public  worship  of  the 
early  Christians,  who  were  within  a  genera- 
tion of  Christ's  time.  Nothing  could  be  more 
certainly  petitional  than  "  Give  us  this  day  our 
daily  bread."  There  is  more  than  a  sugges- 
tion of  "  if  it  be  possible  "  in  "  Thy  kingdom 
come."  But  Mrs.  Eddy  is  not  to  be  daunted. 
Careless  of  her  tenses,  she  explains  away  the 
plain  meaning  the  Lord's  Prayer  has  had  all 
through  the  centuries,  commands  her  explana- 
tion to  be  used  invariably  with  it  at  all  Chris- 


158  Christian  Science 

tian  Science  services,  and  prints  it  thus  in  her 
text-book : 

Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven, 
Our  Father-Mother  God,  all-harmonious j 

Hallowed  be  Thy  name. 
Adorable   One. 

Thy  kingdom  come. 
Thy  kingdom  is  within  us,  Thou  art  ever-present. 
Thy  will  be  done  in  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven. 
EnaMe  us  to  Jc7iow,  as  in  heaven,  so  on  earth — God 
is  omnipotent,  supreme. 
Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread; 
Give    us    grace    for    to-day;    feed    the    famished 
affections; 
And  forgive  us  our  debts,  as  we  forgive  our 
debtors. 
And  love  is  reflected  in  love; 

And  lead  us  not  into  temptation,  but  deliver 
us  from  evil; 
And  God  leadeth  us  not  into  temptation,  'but  de- 
livereth  us  from  sin,  disease  and  death. 
For  thine  is  the  kingdom,  and  the  power,  and 
the  glory,  forever. 
For  God  is  infinite,  all  Power,  all  Life,  Truth,  Love, 
over  all,  and  All.^^ 

To  one  outside  the  Christian  Science  fold  it 
is  refreshing  to  turn  from  such  unreal  and  un- 
warranted exegesis  to  the  explanation  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge,  comprehensive  equally  in  his 
Christianity    and    his    science,    gives    of    the 


The  Religion  and  Theology       159 

Lord's  Prayer.  He  says  that  when  we  use  it 
in  these  scientific  days 

we  first  attune  our  spirit  to  the  consciousness 
of  the  Divine  Fatherhood;  trying  to  realise  His 
infinite  holiness  as  well  as  His  loving-kindness,  de- 
siring that  everything  alien  to  His  will  should 
cease  in  our  hearts  and  in  the  world,  and  longing 
for  the  establishment  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 
Then  we  ask  for  the  supply  of  the  ordinary  needs 
of  existence,  and  for  the  forgiveness  of  our  sins  and 
shortcomings  just  as  we  pardon  those  who  have 
hurt  us.  We  pray  to  be  kept  from  evil  influences, 
and  to  be  protected  when  they  attack  us.  Finally, 
we  repose  in  the  might,  majesty,  and  dominion  of 
the  Eternal  Goodness.*^ 

Surprising  as  is  INIrs.  Eddy's  effort  to  make 
prayer  nothing  more  than  declaration,  far 
more  surprising  is  her  treatment  of  the  sacra- 
m.ents  of  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper. 

Christian  people  generally  agree  that  a 
sacrament  is  "an  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
an  inward  and  spiritual  grace."  They  accept 
literally  Jesus'  injunction  to  "  teach  all  na- 
tions, i)aptising  them,"  and  St.  Paul's  testi- 
mony that 

I  have  received  of  the  Lord  that  which  also  I 
delivered  unto  you,  That  the  Lord  Jesus  the  same 
night  in  which  he  was  betrayed  took  bread:  And 
when  he  had  given  thanks,  he  brake  it,  and  said. 
Take,  eat:  this  is  my  body,  which  is  broken  for  you: 


yj 


i6o  Christian  Science 

this  do  in  remembrance  of  me.  After  the  same 
manner  also  he  took  the  cup,  when  he  had  supped, 
saying,  This  is  the  new  testament  in  my  blood:  this 
do  ye,  as  oft  as  ye  drink  it,  in  remembrance  of  me.^^ 

Christians  perpetuate  the  sacraments  of 
Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper  because  they 
beheve  that  in  so  doing  they  do  the  will  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

Mrs.  Eddy  sees  nothing  in  a  sacrament  save 
a  Roman  soldier's  oath,  and  one  authorised 
to  speak  for  her  assures  us  that  she  honours 
the  sacrament  apart  from  its  material  symbol, 
as  though  the  symbol  were  not  itself  the 
sacrament.^^ 

"  Baptism,"  she  says,  "  is  a  purification 
from  all  error."  One  student  recalls  how  Mrs. 
Eddy  once  held  a  baptismal  service  without 
v/ater,  and  no  student,  however  earnestly  he 
seeks,  will  ever  find  a  font  in  any  Christian 
Science  church.^^ 

The  Lord's  Supper  she  long  ago  dismissed 
as  "  a  dead  rite."  ^^  She  explains  that  Christ 
has  come  a  second  time  in  Christian  Science 
and  inquires,  "If  a  friend  be  with  us,  why  need 
we  memorials  of  that  friend?"  The  mother 
Church  in  Boston  does  have,  not  oftener  than 
once  a  year,  what  Christian  Scientists  are 
pleased  to  call  a  "  Silent  Communion."     But 


The  Religion  and  Theology       i6i 

it  has  no  actual  relationship  with  the  Lord's 
Supper.  "  Our  Eucharist,"  says  Mrs.  Eddy, 
"  is  spiritual  communion  with  the  one  God. 
Our  bread  '  which  cometh  down  from  heaven  ' 
is  Truth.  Our  cup  is  the  Cross:  our  wine  the 
inspiration  of  Love."  ^^ 

Worse  than  this,  Mrs.  Eddy  calmty  sug- 
gests the  substitution  of  a  breakfast  for  the 
historic  Supper  of  the  Christian  Church. 
Eead  her  amazing  words:  "What  a  contrast 
between  our  Lord's  last  supper  and  His  last 
spiritual  breakfast  with  His  disciples  in  the 
bright  morning  hours,  at  the  joyful  meeting 
on  the  shore  of  the  Galilean  sea.  .  .  .  This 
spiritual  meeting  with  our  Lord,  in  the  dawn 
of  the  new  light,  is  the  morning  meal  which 
Christian   Scientists  commemorate."  ^^ 

Even  Straus  stopped  short  of  substitution. 
He  wrote,  "  Never  at  any  time  will  it  be  pos- 
sible to  rise  above  Him  or  to  imagine  any  one 
who  should  ever  be  equal  with  Him."  And 
yet  Mrs.  Eddy,  without  training  in  textual 
criticism,  ventures  to  dismiss  the  historic  Sup- 
per which  Jesus  established  if  He  established 
anything,  and  to  substitute  for  it  a  breakfast 
He  nowhere  hints  He  wanted  or  intended  to 
establish. 

"  The  emphatic  purpose  of  Christian  Sci- 


1 62  Christian  Science 

ence,"  says  its  founder,  "is  the  heahng  of  sin; 
and  this  task  is  a  milhon  times  harder  than  the 
cure  of  disease."  ^^  St.  Paul  could  bear  his 
thorn  in  the  flesh.  He  could  even  suffer  fools 
gladly.  But  sin  wrung  from  him  the  bitter 
cry,  "  O  wretched  man  that  I  am.  Who  shall 
deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this  death? " 
Whatever  sin  may  be  in  metaphysics  it  is  real 
enough  in  life.  It  gets  up  with  us  in  the 
morning.  It  is  at  our  elbow  all  day  long.  It 
goes  to  bed  with  us  at  night;  sometimes  to 
haunt  our  dreams.     It  is  grimly  real. 

But  what  is  sin  in  the  catalogue  of  Christian 
Science?  It  is  usually  identified  with  evil. 
It  "  never  did  exist."  It  is  the  effect  of  error, 
and  since  error  is  the  author  of  the  unreal, 
sin,  evil  in  general,  is  unreal.  It  bears  "  the 
same  relation  to  good,"  says  Mr.  Farlow, 
*'  that  darkness  bears  to  light.  The  psalmist 
said  '  The  darkness  and  the  light  are  both  alike 
to  thee.'  This  was  equivalent  to  declaring 
that  to  the  supreme  intelligence  there  is  no 
darkness;  all  is  light.  God  is  good  omni- 
present; hence  there  is  no  room  for  evil."  ^^ 

At  this  point,  Christian  Science  comes 
closer  possibly  than  elsewhere  to  the  liberal 
thinking  of  to-day.  That  evil  is  unreal  in  the 
sense  that  it  is  not  to  last  forever  many  hold 


The  Religion  and  Theology       163 

outside  of  Christian  Science.  JNIystics  even 
back  to  Dionysius  go  all  the  way  with  Mrs. 
Eddy  in  denial  that  evil  is,  in  any  sense,  real. 
Browning  says,  "  The  evil  is  null,  is  nought,  is 
silence  implying  sound  "  ^^ ;  and  R.  J.  Camp- 
bell urges  us  to  break  the  fetters  of  sin  by 
"  the  reassertion  of  the  universal  life."  ^^ 

Christian  Science  finds  its  concept  of  evil  in 
the  fourth  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  fundamental  pro- 
positions: "Life,  God,  omnipotent  Good, 
deny  death,  evil,  sin,  disease."  ^^  In  confirma- 
tion of  this  the  Scriptures  are  invoked  by  Mr. 
Farlow.  But  as  often  happens  when  used  as 
an  arsenal  from  which  to  draw  proof  texts, 
the  Scriptures  are  far  from  conclusive.  If 
the  psalmist  thought,  as  Mr.  Farlow  says, 
that  God  did  not  create  the  darkness  and  the 
evil  of  the  world,  Isaiah  disagrees  with  him. 
Isaiah  puts  into  the  mouth  of  God  the  words: 
"  I  form  the  light,  and  create  the  darkness : 
I  make  peace  and  create  evil:  I  the  Lord  do 
all  these  things."  If,  as  Mr.  Farlow  likes  to 
tell  us,  after  God  had  finished  the  creation  of 
the  world  He  "  saw  everything  that  he  had 
made,  and  behold,  it  was  very  good,"  God 
would  seem  to  have  given  recognition  to  the 
darkness,  since  He  had,  a  while  before,  taken 
the  trouble  to  "  divide  the  light  from  the  dark- 


164  Christian  Science 

ness."  The  time  has  long  since  gone  for  prov- 
ing anything  by  proof  texts.  The  whole 
sweep  of  the  Bible  has  in  these  days  to  be  re- 
garded, and  it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  Bible 
as  a  whole  speaks  with  uncertain  voice  as  to 
the  origin  of  evil.^* 

Whether  sin  be  philosophically  real  or  not 
it  is  actual.  Of  the  presence  of  sin  in  thought 
Mrs.  Eddy  is  quite  assured.  She  says  the  mind 
must  be  emptied  of  sin  or  sin  will  never  cease, 
that  to  indulge  in  sin  while  asserting  its  un- 
reality is  a  moral  offence,  that  the  victory  over 
sin  will  not  be  won  till  we  strip  off  its  mask.^^ 
But  if  there  is  in  any  of  her  writings  the 
instinctive  recoil  from  the  actuality  of  sin,  I 
have  failed  to  find  it.  In  spite  of  the  fact 
which  the  world  has  long  since  proved,  that 
sin,  whatever  it  may  be  in  theory,  is  in  practice 
"  not  a  want  of  light  but  a  neglect  of  light,"  ^^ 
Mrs.  Eddy  speaks  thus  her  final  word:  "If 
proper  ward  were  kept  over  that  lazar-house, 
that  dismal  cell  and  slaughter-house  of  in- 
famy, mortal  mind,  the  broods  of  evil  which 
infest  it  could  be  cleared  out." 

The  characteristic  weakness  of  INIrs.  Eddy's 
theor}^  of  sin  is  not,  however,  her  failure  to 
speak  clearly  about  the  actuality  of  sin,  nor 
yet    her    pantheistic    tendency    which    many 


The  Religion  and  Theology       165 

ci'itics  have  observed  to  confuse  moral  distinc- 
tions.^' It  is  rather  her  extraordinary  atti- 
tude toward  the  will.  The  will  to  do  the  right 
and  to  leave  undone  the  wrong  has  no  place 
in  the  plan  of  Christian  Science.  It  is,  like 
sin,  an  illusion.  Its  exercise  is  "detrimental 
to  health  and  integrity  of  purpose."  It  is 
"  the  motive-power  of  error."  It  "  produces 
evil  continually."  Though  she  hints  at  a 
higher  will  on  higher  business  bent,  the  will 
with  her  is  ordinarily  that  awful  thing  she 
calls  animal  magnetism.^^ 

Many  pages  in  Science  and  Health  are  at 
first  difficult  to  understand.  Those  which 
deal  with  animal  magnetism  are  difficult  also 
at  last  to  understand.  Quimby  has  no  re- 
sponsibihty  for  them.  Had  Mrs.  Eddy 
possessed  the  knowledge  she  thought  she  had 
of  Quimby  she  would  never,  as  one  of  her  old 
students  writes  me,  have  fallen  into  such  an 
impossible  conception.  Had  she  even  caught 
Quimby's  wholesome  spirit  she  could  never 
have  conjured  up  such  a  morbid  explanation 
of  her  break  with  Kennedy  and  Spofford  or 
dignified  it  into  an  actual  doctrine  in  the  third 
edition  of  her  text-book.  A  student  ventured 
once  to  suggest :  "  Don't  you  think  the  time 
has  come  to  speak  less  of  animal  magnetism?  " 


1 66  Christian  Science 

Whereat  Mrs.  Eddy  sprang  up  from  her  desk 
and  clapped  her  hands  together,  sharply  cry- 
ing, "  Leave  me  at  once."  ^^ 

There  seems  to  be  no  adequate  explanation 
of  the  strange  hold  her  animal  magnetism 
seems  to  have  had  on  her.  It  might  be  called 
an  obsession.  Every  religious  leader  is  apt  at 
some  time  to  personalise  the  evil  of  the  world. 
Nothing  else  will  serve  so  many  purposes. 
Years  ago  Mrs.  Eddy  found  her  devil.  Her 
literary  adviser  in  the  eighties  said,  "Animal 
magnetism  is  her  devil."  Sometimes  she  calls 
it  hypnotism,  mesmerism,  mortal  mind,  mali- 
cious animal  magnetism  as  well  as  animal 
magnetism,  and  in  her  private  correspondence 
she  familiarly  refers  to  it  as  "  M.  A.  M." 

The  clearest  account  of  it  is  given  under  the 
heading  of  "  Mortal  JNIind."  She  says  it  has 
no  real  existence;  it  is  nothing,  while  claiming 
to  be  something.  And  yet  she  admits  it  to 
be  "an  autocrat "  and  "  the  cause  of  organic 
disease."  She  says  it  "  changes  order  into 
discord,"  "  confers  power  on  drugs,"  "  pro- 
duces false  beliefs,"  "  convulses  matter," 
"  counterfeits  divine  justice,"  "  creates  its  own 
conditions,"  "  fills  creation  full  of  nameless 
children,"  "  fills  man  with  pain,"  "  impresses 
its  thoughts  on  body,"  "  makes  Spirit  noth- 


The  Religion  and  Theology       167 

ing,"  "  rules  all  that  is  mortal,"  "  transfers  its 
fears  to  other  minds,"  and  "seeks  to  kill  his 
fellow-mortals,  morally  and  physically."  ^^ 

If  Mortal  JNlind  does  things  so  terrible, 
no  wonder  Mrs.  Eddy  calls  it  Satan.^^  No 
wonder  she  has  spent  her  life  in  mortal  terror 
of  it.  No  wonder  she  once  wrote  a  student 
who,  she  feared,  was  criticising  her,  "  Wont 
you  exercise  reason  and  let  me  live,  or  will  you 
hill  me?  Your  mind  is  just  what  has  brought 
on  my  relapse."  ^^  No  wonder  she  could  bring 
herself  a  few  years  later  to  believe  that  her 
husband  Dr.  Eddy  had  been  killed  by  "  arseni- 
cal poison  mentally  administered,"  and  that 
even  a  printing  press  might  be  put  out  of 
order  by  "  ]M.  A.  ]M."  No  wonder  her  adopted 
son.  Dr.  Foster-Eddy,  tells  of  days  as  dark 
and  nights  as  black  as  those  painted  by  Poe,- 
when  the  unhappy  woman  fancied  that  evil 
minds  were  assailing  her  to  her  confusion  and 
distress.  No  wonder  that  as  recently  as  1900 
she  wrote  him:  "  You  are  better  removed  from 
'  M.  A.  M.'  in  Boston."  No  wonder  that  her 
true  son  came  away  from  his  last  meeting 
with  her  a  few  months  ago  impressed  with  the 
effect  of  the  terrible  obsession  on  her  mind  and 
soul  and  has  since  had  evidence  of  her  belief 
that  "  M.  A.  M."  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  late 


1 68  Christian  Science 

lawsuit  and  of  the  criticism  to  which  she  is  in 
her  old  age  exposed. 

Stranger  than  Mrs.  Eddy's  situation  is  that 
of  many  of  her  followers  who  are  troubled  by 
the  same  obsession.  I  have  talked  with  Chris- 
tian Scientists,  great  and  small,  who  seem 
more  certain  of  the  personality  of  "  M.  A.  M." 
than  of  the  personality  of  God.  I  know 
directly,  and  I  know  of,  good  people  ill  who 
charge  the  tardiness  of  their  recovery  to  the 
"  M.  A.  M."  which  they  are  sure  that  un- 
believers send  their  way.  Judge  Clarkson  of 
Omaha,  Nebraska,  left  Christian  Science  be- 
cause its  "  M.  A.  M."  became  unbearable.^^ 
If  Christian  Science  is  to  grow  after  Mrs. 
Eddy's  death,  her  demonology,  which  is 
all  her  own  and  not  Quimby's,  must  die 
with  her.  Otherwise  it  will  drag  the  entire 
system  up  before  that  bar  which  no  obsession 
ever  yet  has  faced  and  lived,  the  bar  of  the 
universal  sense  of  humour.^* 


CHAPTER  VII 

CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE  HEAIJNG 

The  Supreme  Test  of  Christian  Science — Mrs.  Eddy's 
Claim  that  Christian  Science  Cures  all  Diseases — Her 
Followers'  Attitude — Venturesome  Experiments — 
Concessions  to  Public  Opinion — Inadequate  Diagnoses 
— All  Tests  Declined — Mrs.  Eddy's  Attack  upon  the 
Doctors — Reply  of  Medicine  and  Surgery — Healing 
by  Understanding  of  the  Christian  Science  Theory — 
Practical  Illustrations — Chemicalisation — Jesus'  Way 
— Mental  Healing  through  the  Centuries — Pseudo- 
scientific  and  True  Scientific  Mental  Healing — Prin- 
ciple Common  to  Both — The  Possibilities  and  Limi- 
tations of  Suggestion — Christian  Science  Admits  no 
Limitations — Consequent  Need  of  State  Regulation — 
The  Duty  to  the  Truth. 

THOUGH  the  healing  of  the  sinful  may  be, 
as  Mrs.  Eddy  says,  the  supreme  interest 
of  Christian  Science,  the  healing  of  the  sick  she 
makes  its  supreme  test.  She  stakes  her  whole 
philosophy  in  fact  upon  her  therapeutics. 
The  central  principle  that  "Mind  is  AU-in- 

169 


I70  Christian  Science 

all  "  and  that  matter  has  no  real  existence  is, 
we  are  assured,  "  demonstrated  by  healing  the 
sick,  and  thus  proven  absolute  and  divine. 
This  proof  once  seen,  no  other  conclusion  can 
be  reached." 

The  critical  student  of  the  movement  wel- 
comes any  test.  Nothing  else  so  simplifies  a 
complex  situation.  And  yet  Mrs.  Eddy's 
willingness  to  submit  her  philosophy  to  a 
therapeutic  test  argues  a  primitive  conception 
of  the  relationship  between  philosophy  and 
therapeutics.  It  suggests  the  Indian  "  medi- 
cine man  "  "  demonstrating  "  ^ — a  favourite 
word  with  savages  as  well  as  Christian  Scien- 
tists— the  truth  of  the  impossible  theology  he 
holds,  by  noisily  frightening  the  evil  spirits 
out  of  the  sick  man. 

But  if  Mrs.  Eddy  can  make  out  a  case  for 
the  unparalleled  efficacy  of  Christian- Science 
healing,  no  matter  what  the  facts  may  prove 
or  fail  to  prove,  every  book  on  medicine  and 
theology  will  be  discredited.  Every  doctor 
Avill  abandon  his  profession,  to  become  possi- 
bly a  Christian- Science  healer.  Every  cler- 
gyman will  leave  his  pulpit,  possibly  to  seek 
a  readership  in  Christian.  Science  worship. 
And  doctors  and  clergymen,  with  Mrs.  Eddy 
in  mind,  will  say  to    one  another    what  the 


Christian  Science  Healing         171 

Pharisees  said  among  themselves  of  Jesus, 
'''  Perceive  ye  how  ye  prevail  nothing?  behold, 
the  world  is  gone  after  him." 

What  is  JNIrs.  Eddy's  case?  She  claims 
three  things  for  Christian  Science  healing: 

1.  That  it  is  "  the  most  effective  curative 
agent  in  medical  practice." 

2.  That  it  is  Jesus'  way  of  healing. 

3.  That,  abandoned  in  the  early  centuries 
by  the  Christian  Church,  it 

a.  was  first  revived  by  her  in  1866,  and, 

b.  is  to-day  employed  by  Christian  Sci- 
ence alone. 

Her  first  claim  rests  upon  her  general  prin- 
ciple that  "Mind  is  All-in-all."  "Health," 
Mrs.  Eddy  says,  "  is  not  a  condition  of  matter 
but  of  Mind;  nor  can  the  material  senses  bear 
reliable  testimony  on  this  subject.  .  .  .  The 
divine  Principle  of  Science,  reversing  the 
testimony  of  the  physical  senses,  reveals  man 
as  harmoniously  existent  in  Truth,  which  is 
the  only  basis  of  health;  and  thus  Science 
.  .  .  heals  the  sick."  ^ 

The  principle  is  all-inclusive.  If  a  man 
holds  steadily  to  the  behef  that  "  Mind  is  All- 
in-all,"  if  a  man  follows  to  the  letter  JNIr.  Far- 
low's  counsel  that  "  though  the  evidences  of 
the  senses   may   declare   to   the   contrary  we 


172  Christian  Science 

should  still  stick  to  the  spiritual  truth  and 
should  continue  to  denounce  the  false  evi- 
dences," he  is  certain  to  get  well,  no  matter 
what  his  illness  may  appear  to  be.  Organic 
diseases,  Mrs.  Eddy  tells  us,  she  has  cured 
"  as  readily  as  functional  disease."  She  has 
"  healed  hopeless  disease,  and  raised  the  dying 
to  health  and  life."  She  has  stopped  the 
bleeding  of  a  wound  in  her  own  arm.  "  I 
healed,"  she  says,  "  consumption  in  its  last 
stages  that  M.  D.'s  declared  incurable,  the 
lungs  being  mostly  consumed.  I  healed  ma- 
lignant tubercular  diphtheria.  ...  I  healed 
a  cancer  that  had  so  eaten  the  flesh  of  the  neck 
as  to  expose  the  jugular  vein  so  that  it  stood 
out  like  a  cord."  ^ 

Following  closely  in  the  steps  of  Jesus,  she 
promises  her  followers  the  power  to  duplicate 
her  heahng  work.  After  a  few  lessons,  they  go 
forth  accredited  to  heal  all  manner  of  diseases. 
Consumption,  of  course,  they  are  to  cure  since 
there  are  no  lungs  to  become  tuberculous. 
Children's  diseases,  even  though  contagious, 
will  prove  tractable;  for  the  mother's  fears 
have  brought  on  the  disease.  Small-pox  is  not 
difficult;  "mortal  mind,  not  matter,  contains 
and  carries  infection."  Leprosy  is  as  easy  to 
relieve  as  when  Moses  made  his  hand  leprous 


Christian  Science  Healing         173 

and  unleprous  at  will  by  Christian  Science 
methods.  Palsy  yields  at  once  on  the  dis- 
covery that  "  muscles  have  no  power  to  be 
lost."  Cancer  cannot  hold  its  own  if  the 
belief  in  it  be  blotted  out  by  "  such  powerful 
eloquence  as  a  legislator  w^ould  employ  to  de- 
feat the  passage  of  an  inhuman  law."  No  fe- 
ver can  withstand  the  fearlessness  of  matter. 
Brain  diseases,  even  in  advanced  stages,  dis- 
appear before  the  understanding  that  "actual 
Mind "  cannot  be  overworked.  Malformed 
limbs  and  other  troubles  of  the  bones,  being 
"as  directly  the  action  of  mortal  error  as  in- 
sanity," are  scarcely  worth  regarding.  If 
Christian  Science  were  clearly  understood, 
*'  the  human  limb  would  be  replaced  as  readily 
as  the  lobster's  claw, — not  with  an  artificial 
limb,  but  with  the  genuine  one."  Practically 
every  disease  is  covered  and  any  possible  omis- 
sion would  seem  to  be  an  inadvertence.^ 

Her  followers  have  accepted  all  her  claims 
with  the  same  seriousness  with  which  she  has 
made  them.  JNIany  of  these  her  disciples  have 
by  personal  experience  illustrated,  and  other 
claims  their  observation  has  confirmed.  Judge 
Hanna  bears  witness  to  Christian  Science 
healing  of  cancers,  consumption,  and  broken 
bones.    Mr.  Carol  Norton  adds  to  the  list  loco- 


174  Christian  Science 

motor  ataxia,  paresis,  and  Bright's  disease. 
Judge  Clifford  P.  Smith  solemnly  affirms  that 
Christian  Science  has  cured  people  of  every 
kind  of  disease  known  to  the  practice  of  medi- 
cine, whether  considered  curable  or  incurable 
by  that  system.  And  even  a  magazine  writer 
like  William  Allen  Johnston  is  impressed  with 
the  voluminous  evidences  steadily  accumu- 
lating of  the  therapeutic  value  of  Christian 
Science.  ^ 

Healers  trained  by  Mrs.  Eddy  or  by 
her  sanction  have  proved  as  daring  as 
the  founder  of  the  system.  One  has  en- 
deavoured to  lift  the  drooping  head  of  a  wilted 
rubber  plant.  Another  has  essayed  to  send 
out  healing  currents  from  the  mental  battery 
of  Christian  Science  toward  horses,  cows,  and 
dogs.  Another  reports  the  "  good-sized  cav- 
ity "  of  an  aching  tooth  filled  up  by  mental 
treatment  "  not  with  foreign  substance,  but 
the  genuine,  white  and  perfect."  ^ 

Mrs.  Eddy  herself  gladly  takes  advantage 
of  a  dentist's  offer  of  painless  treatment  of 
her  teeth  and  gives  the  following  ingenious 
reason  why: 

Bishop  Berkeley  and  I  agree  that  all  is  Mind. 
Then,  consistently  with  this  premise,  the  conclusion 
is,  that  if  I  employ  a  dental  surgeon,  and  he  believes 


Christian  Science  Healing        175 

that  the  extraction  of  a  tooth  is  made  easier  by 
some  application  of  means  which  he  employs,  and 
I  object  to  the  employment  of  this  means,  I  have 
turned  the  dentist's  mental  protest  against  myself, 
he  thinks  I  must  suffer  because  his  method  is  in- 
terfered with.  Therefore,  his  mental  force  weighs 
against  a  painless  operation,  whereas  it  should  be 
put  into  the  same  scale  as  mine,  thus  producing  a 
painless  operation  as  a  logical  result.  '^ 

Her  accredited  healers,  encouraged  by  her 
statement  that  "Science  can  heal  the  sick  who 
are  absent  from  their  healers,  as  well  as  those 
present,  since  space  is  no  obstacle  to  mind," 
endeavour  in  their  mental  practice  to  ehminate 
all  space  conditions.^ 

Mrs.  Eddy  has  learned  prudence  with  the 
passing  years.  Without  qualifying  her  as- 
sumption that  the  cure  would  always  follow 
could  conditions  be  controlled,  she  admits 
the  temporary  presence  of  unmanageable  ele- 
ments. Public  opinion,  which  she  calls  mortal 
mind,  is  so  certain,  she  remarks,  that  arsenic, 
and  strychnine  in  sufficient  doses  will  cause 
death,  that  in  spite  of  himself  a  Christian 
Scientist  may  die  in  the  fulness  of  his  faith 
if  a  "  dose  of  poison  is  swallowed  through  mis- 
take. .  .  .  The  result  is  controlled  by  the 
majority  of  opinions  outside,  not  by  the  in- 


176  Christian  Science 

finitesimal  minority  of  opinions  in  the  sick 
chamber."  ^ 

For  the  same  reason,  though  surgery  was 
once,  when  Eve  was  excised  out  of  Adam's 
side,  altogether  mental  and  "Christian  Science 
is  always  the  most  skilful  surgeon,"  it  is  bet- 
ter to  leave  surgery  and  the  adjustment  of 
broken  bones  and  dislocations,  to  the  fingers 
of  a  surgeon,  "  until  the  advancing  age 
admits  the  efficacy  and  supremacy  of  Mind."  ^^ 

In  deference  also  to  the  groundless  fears 
of  public  opinion,  "  Mrs.  Eddy  advises  that 
Christian  Scientists  do  not  at  present  treat 
contagious  disease."  ^^ 

What  is  one  to  say  concerning  Mrs.  Eddy's 
claim  that  Christian  Science  is  an  invariable 
specific  for  all  human  ills? 

This  first:  A  scientific  test  is  needed,  and 
Mrs.  Eddy  offers  none  in  the  averment  that 
"  the  divine  Principle  of  healing  is  proven 
in  the  personal  experience  of  any  sincere 
seeker  of  Truth."^-  That  is  but  to  beg  the 
question. 

The  growing  disposition,  voiced  lately  by 
the  Committee  on  Publication,  to  admit  some 
sort  of  diagnosis  will  not  quite  suffice.  Di- 
agnosis is  to  some  extent  determined  by  the 
personality  of  the  physician  and  no  diagnos- 


Christian  Science  Healing         177 

tician  is  infallible.  While  practically  all  phy- 
sicians agree  in  diagnosing  typhoid  fever 
when  the  headache,  weakness,  loss  of  appetite, 
nosebleed,  and  increasing  fever  lead  up  to  the 
characteristic  rose  spots  and  other  abdominal 
symptoms,  there  are  diseases  Christian  Sci- 
ence professes  to  cure  which  are  extremely 
difficult  to  diagnose. 

When,  therefore.  Judge  Hanna  remarks 
that  Christian  Science  has  cured  hundreds  of 
cases  of  cancer,  one  wants  to  know  whether  the 
diagnosis  was  in  each  case  made  by  a  capable 
doctor  or  by  the  patient,  whether  the  grow^th 
was  by  microscopical  examination  demon- 
strated to  be  actual  cancer  or  one  of  those 
non-malignant  tumors  which  have  been  known 
to  disappear  without  treatment,  whether  the 
cancer  was  a  cancer  of  the  stomach  or  a  case 
of  ulceration  or  chronic  gastric  catarrh  in 
which,  Dr.  Osier  says,  "a  positive  diagnosis  is 
impossible."  ^^ 

Seeking  a  scientific  test  which  Christian 
Scientists  would  accept.  Dr.  J.  B.  Huber  ^^  of 
New  York  some  years  ago  addressed  to  Mrs. 
Stetson,  then  first  reader  in  the  foremost 
Christian  Science  church  in  New  York  city, 
a  courteous  letter  containing  such  questions 
as  the  following: 


178  Christian  Science 

How  do  you  define  health? 

How  do  you  define  disease? 

Do  you  investigate  symptoms? 

Do  you  make  diagnosis? 

In  what  does  your  treatment  consist? 

Do  you  ever  administer  a  material  substance  to 
a  patient? 

Do  you  ever  isolate  a  patient  sick  of  an  infectious 
disease? 

Do  you  ever  treat  structural  disease,  such  as 
cancer  or  locomotor  ataxia? 

Do  you  consider  you  have  cured  such  disease? 

Can  animals  be  cured  by  Christian  Science 
methods? 

Mrs.  Stetson  forwarded  the  questions  to 
Mrs.  Eddy.  Mrs.  Eddy  passed  them  on  to 
Judge  Hanna;  and  this  was  his  reply:  "My 
conclusion  is  that  it  will  be  wholly  imprac- 
ticable— indeed  I  may  say  impossible — to 
answer  these  questions  in  such  a  manner  as 
to  make  an  entire  paper  fit  for  publication  in 
a  medical  journal  or  in  any  other  magazine 
or  periodical." 

And  yet  any  well-trained  doctor  in  the  land 
could  and  would  have  given  a  precise  and 
comprehensive  answer. 

An  effort  has  been  made  by  a  psychologist  ^^ 
to  extract  the  information  needed  from 
Christian  Scientists  who  have  been  healed  of 


Christian  Science  Healing         179 

some  disease.     One  evaded  all  the  questions 
thus: 

Whereas,  before  I  was  healed  from  chronic  inva- 
lidism through  the  teachings  of  Christian  Science 
1  used  to  think  much  on  your  topics,  I  wish  never  to 
think  or  refer  to  them  again.  .  .  .  They  are  men- 
tal poison  to  me. 

The  leading  questions,  and,  in  another  case, 
the  answers  were  as  follows: 

What  teas  the  nature  of  your  malady  ? 

It  had  none. 

Eoiv  long  had  you  hcen  afflicted  with  it  f 

Ever  since  the  belief  that  disease  was  a  sub- 
stantial reality,  instead  of  a  negation. 

Hoiv  did  you  first  discover  that  you  were  a  victim 
of  disease  f    Give  fully  your  symptoms. 

By  a  consciousness  of  limitation,  i.  e.,  finiteness. 

How  did  the  idea  come  to  you  that  you  could  l)e 
healed  f 

The  conviction  .  .  .  that  it  was  right  to  be  weU; 
and  sickness  was  a  wrong. 

Was  your  cure  instantaneous  f 

Yes. 

How  did  you  hnotv  that  you  loere  cured  f 

By  the  instant  receding  of  disease,  and  the  cor- 
responding increasing  of  health  and  strength. 

Did  you  hnoiv  it  at  the  time,  or  not  until  later  ? 

At  the  time:  since  Mind  first  perceiving  the 
truth,  its  objective  manifestation  begins  to  appear. 

Did  you  have  to  test  it.  hefore  becoming  con- 
vinced that  a  cure  had  actually  taken  place  f 


i8o  Christian  Science 

No :  it  brought  its  own  self-evident  proof  with  it. 

Not  content  with  Judge  Hanna's  dis- 
appointing answer,  Dr  Huber  undertook  an 
investigation  on  his  own  account  of  Christian 
Science  heahng.  He  ehminated,  first,  the 
downright  failures  which  there  is  some  reason 
to  beHeve  are  numerous.  Then  he  made  a 
careful  examination  of  twenty  so-called  cures. 
Some  were  cured,  he  found,  of  diseases  which 
they  diagnosed  themselves.  Some  under  ex- 
amination broke  down  and  resorted  to  evasion. 
In  no  instance  was  the  cure  such  as  to  cause 
surprise  to  any  doctor  who  knows  from  per- 
sonal experience  that  some  get  well  who  were 
not  really  ill,  some  because  they  cease  to 
saturate  their  systems  with  unnecessary  drugs, 
some  because  a  new  interest  or  a  new  affection 
sweeps  them  out  of  self,  and  a  considerable 
percentage  because  they  have  in  some  way 
called  up  the  power  of  natural  recovery  in- 
herent in  the  body  in  many  instances. 

Mrs.  Eddy  never  stays  long  on  the  de- 
fensive. She  soon  grows  aggressive.  She 
asserts  that  doctors  have  made  no  progress  in 
the  treatment  of  disease,  that  on  the  other  hand 
they  are  to-day  "  flooding  the  world  with  dis- 
eases," and  that  the  fewer  the  doctors,  the  less 
disease  the  world  will  suffer  froni.^^ 


christian  Science  Healing        iSi 

On  many  questions,  history  speaks  with  an 
uncertain  voice,  but  not  on  this.  History 
reports  that  positive  and  preventive  medicine 
has  in  recent  years  decreased  the  death  rate 
and  increased  the  health  and  the  longevity  of 
the  race  beyond  all  credence.  It  is  due  in  the 
main  to  medicine  in  the  largest  sense  that 
Europe  has  no  more  of  that  "  black  death  " 
which  once  swept  millions  out  of  life  and  de- 
populated cities,  that  the  death  rate  of  London 
has  fallen  from  eighty  to  fifteen  a  thousand, 
and  that  of  the  British  army  in  time  of 
peace  from  seventeen  to  eight  a  thousand,  and 
that  in  many  sections  fifteen  years  have  been 
added  to  the  average  human  life.^^ 

It  is  due  in  the  main  to  medicine  that 
typhoid  fever,  which  once  took  off  1228  in  a 
million,  now  takes  off  only  137;  that  yellow 
fever,  once  a  menace  to  our  great  seaports,  is 
now  under  stern  control ;  that  diphtheria,  once 
often  fatal,  is  now  rarely  fatal  when  treated 
promptly;  that  JNIanila,  for  the  first  time  in 
its  history,  has  gone  six  months  without  a  case 
of  infectious  disease;  and  that  pneumonia, 
hydrophobia,  and  malaria  are  ceasing  to  oc- 
casion the  alarm  they  used  to  bring. 

It  is  due  in  the  main  to  skilled  medicine 
that  in  the  recent  Oriental  war  the  Japanese 


i82  Christian  Science 

army  completely  reversed  the  statistics  of  the 
Russo-Turkish  War  with  its  eighty  thousand 
deaths  from  disease  and  twenty  thousand  from 
wounds  and  of  our  Spanish- American  War 
with  its  3681  deaths  from  disease  and  293  from 
bullets,  and  that  it  lost  from  disease  only 
11,992,  while  52,946  died  of  wounds  received 
in  battle/' 

In  surgery,  which  JVIrs.  Eddy  expects  soon 
will  become  merely  mental,  the  facts  make 
even  more  convincingly  against  her.  Anes- 
thesia and  asepsis  have  brought  the  mortality 
down  in  compound  fractures  from  sixty  per 
cent,  to  three,  and  in  major  amputations  from 
fifty  per  cent,  to  two  or  three.^^ 

Deformed  bones  were  once  considered  hope- 
less. A  Glasgow  surgeon  not  long  ago  had 
but  five  failures  out  of  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  operations,  and  all  the  five  were  due 
to  complications.  Of  hernia,  which  once  was 
seldom  operated  on  at  all,  an  Italian  surgeon 
reports  262  cases  with  but  one  death,  a  French 
surgeon  376  with  two  deaths,  and  an  Amer- 
ican surgeon  360  cases  with  one  death. 

With  these  facts,  merely  of  course  represen- 
tative and  not  in  any  way  exhaustive,  to  the 
credit  of  medicine  and  surgery  one  may  well 
stand    in    pause    before    ]Mrs.    Eddy's    stout 


\ 


Christian  Science  Healing        183 

assertion  that  no  progress  has  been  made  in 
medicine  and  surgery,  that  doctors  are  "flood- 
ing the  world  with  diseases,"  that  it  is  "not 
scientific  to  examine  the  body,  in  order  to 
ascertain  if  we  are  in  health,"  that  the  less 
known  about  hygiene  the  better,  that  we  need 
"  a  body  rendered  pure  by  ^lind,  not  by 
matter"  [i.  e.  water],  that  massage  "is  an- 
other medical  mistake,"  that  food  does  not 
affect  the  real  existence  of  man,"  that  "dietetic 
theories  "  are  "  false  reasoning,"  that  "  the 
daily  ablutions  of  an  infant  are  no  more 
natural  or  necessary  than  would  be  the  process 
of  taking  a  fish  out  of  Avater  every  day  and 
covering  it  with  dirt,  in  order  to  make  it  thrive 
more  vigorously  thereafter  in  its  native 
element."  ^^ 

Were  we  to  act  on  Mrs.  Eddy's  strange 
assumptions,  as  we  ought  if  they  are  w^ar- 
ranted,  all  the  beneficence  of  preventive  medi- 
cine, and  of  the  sanitary  science  which  goes 
with  it,  would  disappear.  Filth  and  contag- 
ion would  once  more  hold  sway.  Health 
boards  would  disappear.  Problems  of  sew- 
erage and  water-supply  would  go  unsolved. 
Slums  would  continue  slums  until  the  end. 
Healers  and  "  medicine  men  "  would  be  the 
order    of    the    dav    to    the    disorder    of    the 


1 84  Christian  Science 

body.  And  in  place  of  Florence  Nightingale 
and  Helen  Gould  and  Anita  Newcomb 
McGee,  the  angel  of  the  modern  battlefield 
would  be  Mary  Baker  G.  Eddy  from  the 
serene  security  of  Pleasant  View  radiating 
"  absent  treatment "  to  the  firing  line  and  to 
the  hospital  ward."^ 

Pressed  to  submit  the  Christian  Science 
cures  to  such  tests  as  have  in  every  instance 
preceded  the  statistics  offered  in  respect  to 
medicine  and  surgery,  Mrs.  Eddy  answers: 
"  I  submitted  my  metaphysical  system  of 
treating  disease  to  the  broadest  practical  tests. 
Since  then  this  system  has  gradually  gained 
ground,  and  has  proved  itself,  whenever 
scientifically  employed,  to  be  the  most  effec- 
tive curative  agent  in  medical  practice."  ^^ 
Unfortunately,  Mrs.  Eddy  has  neglected  to 
inform  us  when  any  test  was  made,  on  whom 
it  was  made,  the  circumstances  of  its  making, 
the  nature  of  the  disease  as  determined  by 
expert  diagnosis,  the  time  required  to  estab- 
lish a  perfect  cure,  and  whether  there  was,  as 
has  often  happened  in  her  own  experience, 
a  relapse.  ^^ 

If  Christian  Science  has  ever  cured  malig- 
nant cancer,  we  want  to  know  from  an  expert 
diagnostician  that  the  disease  was  cancer  and 


Christian  Science  Healing         185 

not  a  tumor,  ulcer,  or  catarrh.  If  Christian 
Science  has  ever  cured  a  case  of  palsy,  we  have 
the  right  to  know  whether  the  case  was  one 
of  hysterical  paralysis  or  functional  para- 
plegia, or  on  the  other  hand  actual  paralysis 
due  to  structural  disease  of  the  spinal  cord  or 
of  some  other  part  of  the  motor-nerve  system. 
If  Christian  Science  has  cured  true  diabetes, 
which  Dr.  Osier  ^^  says  he  has  never  seen  cured, 
we  have  a  right  to  know  whether  Fehling's 
test  or  Trommer's  test  or  the  fermentation 
test  w^as  used  and  whether  it  revealed  diabetes 
or  merely  polyuria.  If  Christian  Science  has 
in  any  instance  driven  the  malarial  bacilli  from 
their  feast  on  the  red  corpuscles  of  the  blood, 
we  refuse  to  be  convinced  without  a  micro- 
scopic examination  both  before  and  after. 
And  Mrs.  Eddy's  general  statement  that 
Christian  Science  healing  has  already  "  proved 
itself,"  is  beside  the  mark. 

Pressed  further,  Mrs.  Eddy  says  that  no 
test  is  required.  "  The  divine  Principle  is 
proven  in  the  personal  experience  of  any 
sincere  seeker  of  Truth,"  and  "those  only 
quarrel  with  her  method  who  have  not  under- 
stood her  meaning,  or,  discerning  the  truth, 
come  not  to  the  light  lest  their  works  should 
be  reproved."  ^^     And  then  she  places  all  who 


1 86  Christian  Science 

in  the  interest  of  society  would  put  Christian 
Science  healing  to  a  truly  scientific  test  in  an 
embarrassing  position.  She  adds  to  the  charge 
of  insincerity  the  suggestion  that  all  are  mor- 
ally unsound  who  want  a  scientific  test, — an 
intimation  which  stills  criticism  at  a  cost  which 
Christian  Science  can  scarcely  want  to  pay. 

Mrs.  Eddy  has  another  reason  in  reserve 
for  refusing  to  accept  a  scientific  test  for 
Christian  Science  healing.  There  is,  accord- 
ing to  her  theory,  no  case  to  test.  How  can 
there  be  a  body  to  get  ill  when  there  is  no 
matter  to  constitute  a  body?  Admit  the  ex- 
istence of  matter  and  we  admit  that  moral- 
ity (and  therefore  disease)  has  a  foundation  in 
fact.  Deny  the  existence  of  matter,  and  we 
destroy  the  belief  in  these  conditions  and 
with  it  disappears  the  foundation  of  disease. 
Fevers  are  only  "pictures  depicted  by  mortal 
mind  on  the  body."  Inflammatory  rheuma- 
tism comes  not  from  exposure  and  infection 
but  from  fear.  If  you  sprain  a  muscle  or 
wound  your  flesh  it  is  the  mind  that  decides 
whether  there  shall  be  pain.  "  Colds,  coughs, 
and  contagion  are  engendered  solely  by  mortal 
belief."  "  Tumors,  ulcers,  tubercles,  deformed 
spines  are  all  dream  shadows,  dark  images  of 
mortal   thought,   which   will   flee   before   the 


Christian  Science  Healing         187 

light."  And  so  all  efforts  to  determine  in  the 
only  way  we  can  whether  Christian  Science  is 
''  the  most  effective  curative  agent  in  medical 
practice  "  lead  to  no  result,  and  we  pass  on 
to  Mrs.  Eddy's  next  assumption.^^ 

The  Christian  Science  way  of  healing, 
says  ]VIrs.  Eddy,  is  the  way  that  Jesus  took. 

What  is  the  Christian  Science  way  of  heal- 
ing? It  is,  the  text-book  indicates,  the 
complete  comprehension  of  "  the  Principle  of 
Christian  Science." 

Nothing  more  is  needed  to  effect  a  cure. 
''  We  never  read  that  Jesus  made  a  diagnosis 
of  disease,  in  order  to  discover  some  means 
of  healing  it.  He  never  asked  if  it  were 
acute  or  chronic.  He  never  recommended 
attention  to  laws  of  health,  never  gave  drugs, 
never  prayed  to  know  if  God  were  willing  a 
man  should  live.  He  understood  man  to  be 
immortal,  whose  Life  is  God, — and  not  that 
man  has  two  lives,  one  to  be  destroyed  and  the 
other  to  be  made  indestructible."  ^^ 

Christian  Science  heals,  therefore,  by  giv- 
ing patients  proper  understanding.  God  is 
Principle.  Man  is  God's  idea,  image,  and 
reflection. 

Your  mirrored  reflection  is  your  own  image,  or 
likeness.     If  you  lift  a  weight,  your  reflection  does 


1 88  Christian  Science 

this  also.  If  you  speak,  the  lips  of  this  likeness 
move  in  accord  with  yours.  Now  compare  man,  be- 
fore the  mirror,  to  his  divine  Principle,  God.  Call 
the  mirror  divine  Science,  and  call  man  the  reflec- 
tion. Then  note  how  true,  according  to  Christian 
Science,  is  the  reflection  to  its  original.  As  in  the 
mirror  the  reflection  of  yourself  appears,  so  you, 
being  spiritual,  are  the  reflection  of  God.  The  sub- 
stance. Life,  Intelligence,  Truth,  and  Love,  which 
constitute  Deity,  are  reflected  by  His  creation;  and 
we  shall  see  this  true  likeness  and  reflection  every- 
where, when  we  subordinate  the  false  testimony  of 
the  corporeal  senses  to  the  facts  of  Spirit."  ^7 

The  Christian  Science  healer  learns  to  do 
this  therapeutic  trick  in  a  very  brief  time. 
After  a  few  lessons  he  goes  forth  to  banish 
illness  by  denying  that  there  are  bodies  to  be 
ill,  by  erasing  "  the  images  of  disease  from 
mortal  mind,"  by  convincing  mortal  mind  that 
it  does  not  exist  and  that  therefore  its  beliefs, 
which  cause  trouble,  have  no  real  existence.^^ 

Always  begin  your  treatment  by  allaying  the 
fear  of  patients.  ...  If  you  succeed  in  wholly 
removing  the  fear,  your  patient  is  healed.  [Plead 
the  case  silently.  By  naming  the  disease  audibly] 
you  are  liable  to  impress  it  upon  the  thought  .  .  . 
Mentally  insist  that  harmony  is  the  everlasting  fact, 
and  sickness  the  temporal  falsity.  Realise  the 
pressure   of    health,    and    the    fact    of    harmonious 


Christian  Science  Healing         189 

functions    and    organs   until    the    corporeal    senses 
correspond  with  these  normal  conditions.^^ 

If  the  patient  seems  to  grow  worse,  do  not 
be  alarmed.  "  Calm  the  fear  and  confusion 
induced  by  chemicalisation,  which  is  the  alter- 
native effect  produced  by  Truth  upon  error; 
and  sometimes  explain  the  symptoms  and 
their  cause  to  the  patient."  ^^ 

Mind  will  win  at  last.  Death  itself  will 
one  day  be  destroyed,  for  "  death  is  but  an- 
other phase  of  the  dream  that  existence  can 
be  structural."  "A  demonstration  of  the 
facts  of  Soul,  in  Jesus'  way,  resolves  the 
dark  visions  of  sense  into  harmony  and  im- 
mortality." '^ 

"  In  Jesus'  way."  What  was  Jesus'  w^ay? 
One  cannot  be  sure.  About  His  methods 
Jesws  was  habitually  silent.  "  Thy  faith  hath 
made  thee  w^hole"  was  as  far  as  Jesus  ever 
went  in  explanation  of  His  cures.  He  never 
used  the  formulas  of  Mrs.  Eddy.  He  never 
set  forth  any  such  metaphysical  conception 
of  the  relationship  of  God  and  man  as 
Mrs.  Eddy  entertains.  He  never  even  hinted 
that  matter  has  no  real  existence  and  that  in 
consequence  men  have  no  bodies  to  get  ill. 

Jesus  always  spoke  and  acted  as  though 
He  had  a  body.     He  appeared  at  times  to 


iQO  Christian  Science 

suffer  some  discomfort  from  His  body.  He 
seemed  to  be  weary  by  the  well  of  Jacob  and 
upon  the  cross  He  sighed,  "  I  thirst."  He 
seemed  to  be  hungry  in  the  wilderness  and 
on  the  shore  of  Galilee.  He  seemed  to  feel 
the  piercing  thorns.  He  seemed  to  find  the 
cross  a  heavy  load  to  bear  along  the  via 
dolorosa.  Once  at  least  He  cried  out  upon 
the  cross  as  though  in  pain.  Did  He  really 
feel  the  pain?  Or  did  He  know  what  Mrs. 
Eddy  knows,  that  pain  is  non-existent?  And 
was  He  therefore  acting  out  a  role  He  knew 
was  false? 

Mrs.  Eddy  is  between  the  horns  of  a 
dilemma.  How  can  she  escape?  If  the  pain 
of  the  crucifixion  was  as  real  as  it  appears  to 
one  who  reads  the  poignant  story  to  have 
been,  then  Jesus  did  not  know,  what  Mrs. 
Eddy  knows,  that  there  is  no  pain  in  life  and 
never  has  been  pain.  If  Jesus  felt  no  pain 
then  He  was  the  most  consummate  actor  in 
all  history,  and  since  He  took  pains  to  create 
the  impression  that  He  suffered  pain  He 
added  to  the  role  of  actor  that  of  a  deceiver 
of  the  world  He  came  to  save. 

Mrs.  Eddy  perceives  her  dilemma  and  be- 
takes herself  again  to  her  pet  heresy.  Once 
more   she    divides   the   personality   of   Jesus 


Christian  Science  Healing         191 

Christ  into  two  unequal  parts:  one  of  which, 
Jesus,  suffered;  the  other,  Christ,  could  not 
suffer,  because  under  Mrs.  Eddy's  treatment 
He  is  resolved  into  a  mere  abstraction.  She 
speaks  for  herself:  "Jesus  suffered,  but  the 
eternal  Christ  never  suffered:  for  Christ  is 
the  idea  of  truth,  and  this  idea  comes  to  heal 
sickness  and  sin  through  Christian  Science."  ^^ 

Mrs.  Eddy  escapes  from  her  dilemma,  but 
she  leaves  Jesus  in  a  worse  plight  than  she  was 
in.  She  degrades  Him  to  a  position  lower 
than  her  own,  lower  than  that  of  her  followers. 
She  knows  there  is  no  pain.  She  makes  all 
healing  dependent  on  the  patient's  full  con- 
viction that  there  is  no  pain.  And  yet  she 
says  of  Jesus  that  when  He  "  felt  our  infirm- 
ities He  had  not  conquered  all  the  beliefs  of 
the  flesh,  or  His  sense  of  material  life,  nor 
had  He  risen  to  His  final  demonstration  of 
spiritual  power."  ^^ 

JNIrs.  Eddy  understands,  her  followers 
understand,  the  truth  about  pain;  but  Jesus 
did  not  understand.  He  was  not  so  wise  as 
she.  He  was  a  fledgling,  not  a  full-grown 
Christian  Scientist.  JNIrs.  Eddy  saves  herself 
from  the  cul  de  sac  into  which  her  novel  think- 
ing leads  her,  but  she  leads  Jesus  into  a  worse 
one,  and,  extracting  the  Christ  principle  from 


192  Christian  Science 

\  Him  in  order  to  have  a  Christ  to  come  again 

(one  day  in  Christian  Science,  she  there  leaves 

Jesus  evermore,  less  than  man  according  to 

the  Christian   Science  pattern,   far  less  than 

the  woman  who  interprets  Him. 

The  Christian  Science  way  as  Mrs.  Eddy 
points  it  out  can  scarcely  be  the  way  which 
Jesus  took  to  heal  the  sick. 

Granted  in  the  interest  of  discussion  that 
Christian  Science  healing  is  the  mental  healing 
of  Jesus  and  the  early  Church,  has  there  been 
no  healing  like  it  in  the  ages  since  till  Mrs. 
Eddy's  day? 

Once  more,  appeal  is  possible  to  facts.^* 
All  along  the  Christian  centuries,  if  history 
is  credible,  witnesses  have  testified  in  all  de- 
voutness  and  sincerity  to  Christian  healing. 
Athanasius,  Ambrose,  Chrysostom,  and  Au-  | 
gustine  cite  instances  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury. In  the  fifth,  we  have  the  testimony  of 
Hilary  and  Jerome.  Gregory  the  Great, 
Augustine  of  Canterbury,  and  Cyril  testify 
for  the  sixth  century.  Cuthbert  and  Bede  had 
cures  accredited  to  them.  Eginhard,  an  inti- 
mate of  Charlemagne,  set  down  in  a  book  his 
observations  of  extraordinary  cases. 

The  so-called  "  false  miracles  "  of  the  dark 
ages,   wrought    through  faith  in    bones   and 


Christian  Science  Healing         193 

relics,  were  works  of  mental  healing  if  they 
were  anything  at  all.  Catharine  of  Siena,  in 
1373,  called  a  priest  back  from  the  gates  of 
death,  and  Luther  thought  he  kept  two  men 
from  the  grave  by  prayer.  Bishop  Parkhurst 
and  D'Aubigne  bear  witness  to  the  marvels  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  Charles  II.  touched 
one  hundred  thousand  persons  suffering  from 
the  king's  evil  (scrofula),  and  Queen  Anne 
laid  her  heahng  hand  on  young  Samuel 
Johnson.  Moravians,  Waldenses,  Puritans, 
Presbyterians,  Huguenots,  Baptists,  Method- 
ists, all  in  one  way  or  another  bridged  the 
gulf  between  the  Reformation  and  the  nine- 
teenth century  by  their  healing  works. 

There  was  not  a  decade  in  the  nineteenth 
century  but  had  some  testimony  to  give  con- 
cerning mental  healing,  done  of  tenest  in  Jesus' 
name.  The  story  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy  and 
his  palsy  patient,  who  mistook  the  clinical 
thermometer  placed  beneath  his  tongue  for  a 
new  remedy  and  rapidly  got  well,  is  a  staple 
among  mental  healing  stories.  Parson  Chi- 
niquy  was  cured  of  typhoid  fever  in  1837  by 
a  vision  of  St.  Anne  and  again  in  1858  by  the 
will  to  get  well.  Parson  Blumhardt,  with  his 
faith  healing  on  the  continent,  was  matching 
Quimby  and  his  work  at  the  same  period  in 


194  Christian  Science 

this  country.  And  since  the  httle  shepherdess 
had  her  vision  of  the  Virgin  fifty  years  ago 
such  miracles  of  Christian  heahng  have  been 
worked  atLourdes  that  Charcot  in  his  later  life 
every  year  sent  patients  whom  he  could  not 
cure  in  his  hospital  to  the  little  town  in  the 
Pyrenees  and  seldom  sent  in  vain.  Mrs. 
Eddy,  Dowie,  Simpson,  Schlatter,  Schrader, 
and  Bradley  Newell  have  all  been  names  to 
conjure  with  in  recent  years.  After  two 
years  of  patient  study,  on  such  terms  as  were 
obtainable,  of  some  sixteen  hundred  cures 
attributed  to  them,  Professor  Goddard, 
trained  psychologist,  reports  that  the  dis- 
eases, according  to  the  patient's  word,  covered 
almost  the  whole  field  of  pathology,  with 
nervous  troubles  in  the  lead;  33  per  cent,  of 
the  patients  claimed  to  have  been  instantane- 
ously healed,  50  per  cent,  gradually,  and  17 
per  cent,  incompletely. 

Professor  Goddard's  final  judgment  con- 
cerning all  such  mental  healers  is: 

They  all  cure  disease  and  they  all  have  failures. 
They  all  cure  the  same  kind  of  diseases  and  the 
same  diseases  are  incurable  for  them  all.  In 
those  classes  of  disease  where  the  cures  are 
wrought,  there  are  the  same  percentages  of  cures 
by  all  the  methods.     Stripped  of  a  few  character- 


Christian  Science  Healing         195 

istic  phrases  the  reports  from  all  the  different  forms 
are  the  same.  A  testimonial  to  a  patent  medicine, 
for  example,  reads  precisely  like  one  of  Bowie's  re- 
ports of  a  divine  healing  cure.  Again  there  are 
many  records  of  people  going  from  one  school  to 
another  and  in  this  no  one  practice  seems  to  show 
any  advantage.  Some  fail  after  trying  all.  Some 
fail  to  get  cured  by  divine  healing,  but  get  restored 
by  Christian  Science,  and  vice  versa.  Others  fail 
with  Christian  Science  and  are  successful  in  hyp- 
notism, and  vice  versa,^^ 

But  there  is,  these  days,  drugless  heahng 
of  which  it  is  possible  to  speak  with  more 
precision.  It  is  the  mental  healing  to  the  un- 
disputed credit  of  the  nervous  specialists  of 
standing  in  the  medical  profession.  The 
diagnosis  in  each  instance  is  as  nearly  accurate 
as  diagnosis  can  be.  The  methods  have  no 
mystery  enshrouding  them.  The  results  are 
as  beneficial  as  perhaps  can  be  secured.  And 
no  cure  is  announced  that  will  not  stand  the 
test  to  which  Christian  Science  steadily  re- 
fuses to  submit  its  cures. 

Van  Rhenterghem  reports  that  of  162  cases 
of  rheumatism,  hysteria,  neuralgia,  epilepsy, 
indigestion,  and  deafness  which  he  treated 
without  medicine  91  were  cured,  46  im- 
proved, and  25  did  not  improve.^^  Parkyn, 
who  treats  only  nervous  troubles,  reports  a 


196  Christian  Science 

cure  in  every  case  of  nervous  prostration. 
Bernheim's  De  la  Suggestion  a  la  Thera- 
peutics is  a  continuous  chronicle  of  the  drug- 
less  cure  of  cerebral  hemorrhage,  paresis  of 
traumatic  origin,  violent  hysteria,  nervous 
aphonia,  general  chorea,  chronic  gastritis, 
epigastric  pain,  rheumatism,  neuralgia,  and 
insomnia.  Dubois's  book,  recently  translated, 
on  The  Psychic  Treatment  of  Nervous  Dis- 
orderSj  makes  clear — for  Dr.  Dubois  has  had 
twenty  years  of  successful  practice  at  Berne — 
t?iat  mental  healing  is  as  surely  a  specific  for 
neurasthenia,  hysteria,  hypochondria,  melan- 
cholia, and  the  other  well-known  ills  which  lie 
between  normal  health  and  insanity,  as  quinine 
is  for  malaria. 

Including,  as  we  should,  hypnotism  in  the 
catalogue  of  mental  healing,  we  find  results 
that  will  stand  any  test.  Of  414  cases,  which  in- 
cluded 29  organic  diseases,  39  severe  neu- 
roses, 60  mental  diseases,  233  neuropathic 
disorders,  and  44  functional  derangements,  28 
per  cent,  were  permanently  cured,  27  per  cent, 
visibly  improved,  26  per  cent,  received  some 
benefit,  20  per  cent,  were  not  affected  one  way 
or  the  other,  and  in  one  per  cent,  the  result  was 
unknown. 

As  to   surgery,   which   Mrs.   Eddy   would 


I 


Christian  Science  Healing         197 

for  the  present  leave  to  the  surgeon,  even 
major  operations  have  been  performed  with 
hypnotism  in  the  place  of  etherisation.  As 
long  ago  as  1846  Esdaile  was  by  means  of 
hypnotism  amputating  arms  and  legs  without 
causing  pain;  and  more  than  a  dozen  Euro- 
pean specialists  have  repeatedly  conducted 
women  through  the  perils  of  childbirth  with- 
out consciousness,  recollection,  or  any  painful 
after  consequences.^^ 

But  the  catalogue  of  drugless  healing  is  not 
to-day  complete  without  a  word  concerning 
the  Emmanuel  Movement  in  progress  this 
year  past  in  Boston,  almost  within  the  shadow 
of  the  Christian  Science  church.  The  move- 
ment is  based  upon  sound  principles.  It  rec- 
ognises the  limitations  of  suggestion.  It  deals 
only  with  functional  and  nervous  disorders. 
Diagnosis  is  invariably  made  by  an  expert 
physician.  Suggestion  is  reenforced  at  every 
point  by  faith  in  the  fundamentals  of  historic 
Christianity.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  serious  "  at- 
tempt to  weld  into  friendly  alliance  the  most 
advanced  medico-psychological  knowledge  of 
our  time  and  a  primitive.  New  Testament 
Christianity,  as  scholarship  has  disclosed  it." 

Though  results  have  not  as  yet  been  sys- 
tematically reported,  it  seems  likely  to  those 


198  Christian  Science 

who  have  made  a  careful  study  of  the  move- 
ment that  this  year  past  hundreds  of  cases  of 
neurasthenia,  hysteria,  hypochondria,  insomnia, 
certain  forms  of  paralysis,  various  functional 
disturbances,  suicidal  tendencies,  and  im- 
moral habits  have  been  permanently  cured.  It 
was  with  this  experiment  in  mind  that  Dr. 
Llewellys  F.  Barker,  who  succeeded  Dr.  Osier 
at  the  Johns  Hopkins  University,  recently  re- 
marked: "  Men  and  women,  generally,  as  well 
as  medicine  and  science,  are  coming  to  a  real- 
isation of  the  high  part  played  by  the  mind 
in  matters  affecting  the  body.  But  this  know- 
ledge can  only  exert  its  full  and  true  value 
through  a  proper  combination  of  the  best 
revealed  science  and  religion."  ^^ 

What  is  the  principle — for  there  must  be 
one — which  underlies  all  mental  heahng, 
whether  that  of  Christian  Science,  the  New 
Thought,  the  nervous  specialist,  the  Emman- 
uel Movement,  or  the  family  doctor  who  is 
constantly  employing  it  without  pretension  or 
profession? 

Three  hundred  years  before  Mrs.  Eddy 
announced  that  "whatever  is  cherished  in 
mortal  mind  as  the  physical  condition  is 
imaged  forth  on  the  body,"   Spenser  wrote: 

"  For  of  the  soule,  the  bodie  forme  doth  take, 
For  soule  is  forme,  and  doth  the  bodie  make." 


Christian  Science  Healing         199 

But  for  a  scientific  statement  we  turn 
again  to  the  psychologist.  Professor  God- 
dard  says:  "  The  idea  of  health  tends  to  pro- 
duce health  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of 
the  idea  to  be  met,  or  inversely  as  the  opposi- 
tion to  be  met."  ^^ 

Now  the  principle  emerges  into  view.  It 
is  the  idea  of  good  health  that  tends  to  bring 
good  health.  It  is  the  suggestion  of  the  idea 
that  constitutes  the  common  principle  we  seek. 
Some  mental  healers  resort  to  one  device  in 
suggesting  the  idea;  others  to  another. 
Whatever  gives  the  greatest  impetus  to  the 
suggestion  is  the  most  effective.  Mrs.  Eddy's 
metaphysics  has  in  itself,  probably,  no  more 
therapeutic  value  than  the  tom-tom  of  the 
"  medicine  man."  A  false  belief,  as  Paracel- 
sus and  Pomponazzi  remarked  centuries  ago, 
may  be  as  efficacious  for  therapeutic  purposes 
as  a  true  one.  Christian  Science  has  won  a 
place  in  mental  therapeutics  not  because  it  has 
discovered  any  principle  in  place  of  the  com- 
mon principle  of  suggestion,  but  because  its 
founder,  gifted  as  she  is  with  unusual  hypnotic 
power,  has  made  its  strange  metaphysics  a 
motive  power  to  suggestion. 

But  suggestion  has  its  limitations.  If 
every  idea  does  tend  to  "generate  its  actu- 
ality,"   the    tendency    is    sometimes    checked. 


200  Christian  Science 

There  are  certain  anatomical  changes  that 
frustrate  the  mind's  desire  to  replace  "as 
readily  as  the  lobster's  claw  "  the  limb  lost  in 
the  railway  accident.  There  are  certain  hard 
and  stubborn  facts  which  would  seem  to  stay 
the  mental  healing  of  the  wilted  rubber  plant 
and  the  sick  horse. 

These  limitations  are  not  always  easy  to 
describe.  But  they  are  usually  recognisable. 
Allowance  must  invariably  be  made  for  them. 
The  way  of  Christian  Science  is  strewn  with 
broken  hearts  and  maimed  bodies,  ruined 
health  and  lives  sacrificed,  because  under  the 
hypnotic  spell  of  Mrs.  Eddy  her  subjects  have 
refused,  except  under  compulsion  of  public  in- 
dignation or  of  the  law,  to  make  such  allow- 
ance. Christian  Scientists  may  take  comfort 
from  the  words  of  Professor  William  James, 
pragmatist  as  he  is,  that  the  state  is  not  called 
upon  to  pronounce  between  rival  schools  of 
medicine,  but  the  intelligent  public  will  not 
give  to  Christian  Science  the  free  hand  it  de- 
sires and  means  to  have,  until  definite  assur- 
ance has  been  given  that  Christian  Scientists 
do  recognise  the  limitations  of  the  principle  of 
suggestion  and  are  content  to  do  their  work 
within  those  limitations. 

It  is  in  the  hypnotic  treatment  of  disease 


Christian  Science  Healing:         201 


^5 


that  suggestion  becomes  an  actual  specific. 
Hypnotism  is  nothing  but  suggestion  so  per- 
sistent and  profound  as  to  induce  an  artificial 
sleep  in  which  all  mental  opposition  is  silenced 
and  all  possible  untoward  influences  are  ex- 
cluded. There  are  dangers  in  its  use  as  there 
are  dangers  in  the  use  of  all  good  things.  It 
can  conceivably  be  put,  and  sometimes  is  put, 
to  questionable  purposes;  so,  too,  is  arsenic. 
But  for  Mrs.  Eddy  to  fulminate  against 
hypnotism  on  the  score  that  it  is  "  error," 
"  mental  malpractice,"  "  animal  magnetism," 
and  to  threaten  excommunication  to  the  fol- 
lower who,  for  instance,  may  want  to  read  his 
Bramwell  or  his  Moll  or  the  new  edition  of 
Lloyd  Tuckey's  monumental  work,  is  to  add 
to  the  tale  of  evidence  steadily  accumulating 
that  Mrs.  Eddy  knows  no  science  save  the 
pseudo-science  she  herself  sets  up,  and  is  to 
disqualify  her  and  her  interpreters  to  speak  on 
any  mental  therapeutic  question. 

The  conclusion,  then,  to  which  one  comes  at 
last  is  this :  that,  like  all  other  systems  of 
mental  healing.  Christian  Science  rests  upon 
the  well-established  principle  of  suggestion. 
The  philosophy  of  Christian  Science  is  purely 
adventitious,  as  is  proved  by  the  career  of 
Quimby,    who,    according   to   his    pupil,    Dr. 


202  Christian  Science 

Evans,  obtained  large  results  merely  by  sug- 
gestion.^^ Its  exact  therapeutic  value,  in  spite 
of  the  amazing  testimonials  it  presents,  cannot 
be  determined  till  Christian  Science  is  ready 
to  submit  its  cures  to  truly  scientific  tests. 
That  Christian  Science  does  call  for  state 
regulation  is  evident  to  those  who  believe  the 
state  has  duties  to  her  adult  ignorant  as  well 
as  to  her  little  children. 

One  would  be  as  generous  as  possible  to  any 
faith  which  can  re-enforce  suggestion.  But 
there  is  a  duty  to  the  mind  as  well  as  to  the 
body,  and  if  one  must  choose  between  the 
good  health  of  mind  which  always  comes  from 
cleaving  to  the  truth  and  the  good  health  of 
body  which  may  come  in  certain  cases  with  the 
acceptance  of  a  false  philosophy,  the  normal 
and  the  wholesome  will  prefer  to 

''  Look  straight  out — 
See  things — not  try  to  evade  them. 
Facts  shall  be  facts  for  me,  and  the  truth  the 
truth  forever."  ^^ 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MARRIAGE  AND  THE  FAMILY 

The  Gravest  Defect — Christian  Science  Ascetic — Mrs. 
Eddy's  Testimony  Prompted  by  her  Personal  Ex- 
perience— Denies  the  Sacramental  Use  of  Matter — 
Misinterprets  Jesus'  Words — Teaches  Possibility  of 
Race  Perpetuation  without  Marriage — Some  Ex- 
planations which  do  not  Explain — Simultaneous  Con- 
tradictions— The  Testimony  of  the  Manual  and  the 
Lesson  Quarterly — The  Obvious  Tendency — Public 
Opinion  Making  Ready  for  a  Final  Judgment — The 
Alternative — Duty  of  the  Hour. 

TTHE  gravest  defect  of  the  Christian  Science 
^  system  yet  remains  to  be  considered. 
Christian  Science  is  in  essence  ascetic.  I  use 
the  word  advisedly.  I  have  read  and  re-read 
in  seven  editions  of  Science  and  Healthy  rang- 
ing from  1875  to  1906,  Mrs.  Eddy's  chapter 
on  marriage.  I  find  in  it  many  high  ideals, 
many  practical  suggestions.  It  is  gratifying 
to  hear  any  woman,  and  especially  a  woman 

203 


204  Christian  Science 

whose  matrimonial  experiences  have  been  so 
varied  and  unsatisfying  that  she  writes,  mar- 
riage "  is  often  convenient,  sometimes  pleas- 
ant, and  occasionally  a  love  affair,"  ^  lift  her 
voice  against  divorce  and  counsel  married 
people  to  stay  married  until  death.  I  know 
that  some  families  have  been  blessed  by  the 
conversion  of  their  members  to  Christian  Sci- 
ence. I  know  that  a  new  conception  of  the 
dignity  and  spiritual  value  of  self-control  has 
been  lodged  in  many  a  mind.  I  know  that 
many  a  husband  has  been  reclaimed  from  dis- 
sipation, many  a  wife  from  frivolity,  by  the 
call  of  the  spiritual  which  in  spite  of  all  its 
error  does  echo  from  Science  and  Health. 

And  yet,  allowing  liberally  for  all  that, 
Christian  Science  is  in  essence  ascetic.  Mrs. 
Eddy  says  it  is,  and  she  should  know.  "  Is 
marriage  nearer  right  than  celibacy?  "  she  in- 
quires, and  then  replies,  "Human  knowledge 
inculcates  that  it  is,  while  Science  indicates 
that  it  is  not."  ^  By  its  insistence  on  the  un- 
reality of  matter  Christian  Science  logically 
disavows  the  sacramental  character  of  mar- 
riage, makes  it  but  a  temporary  stage  in  the 
development  of  the  race,  and  loosens  the  ties 
affection  or  kinship  forms. 

I  could  give  instances — for  I  have    made 


Marriage  and  the  Family         205 

inquiries  far  and  wide — in  which  famihes  that 
have  for  long  years  known  only  happiness  and 
concord  have  suddenly  become  the  prey  of 
discord  and  division,^  in  which  the  love  of 
husbands  for  wives  and  fathers  for  children 
has  dissolved  into  an  unfortunate  aloofness,  in 
which  wives  have  ceased,  except  in  name,  to 
Hve  as  wives  and  mothers  have  come  to  think 
of  children  as  millstones  round  their  necks,  in 
which  daughters  have  ceased  to  be  daughters 
except  before  the  world,  and  sisters  have 
separated  for  all  time  from  sisters  who  de- 
clined to  go  with  them  into  Christian  Sci- 
ence, in  which  lovers  have  broken  their  en- 
gagement and  friends  have  given  up  their 
life-long  friendship  for  no  reason  save  a  dif- 
ference in  the  point  of  view  concerning  what 
is  nothing  after  all  except  a  problem  in  pure 
metaphysics. 

Some  men  may  for  good  reasons  remain 
celibate  as  Jesus  did,  and  there  is  on  them  no 
reflection.  Some  women  may  be  virgins  till 
the  last,  and  that,  too,  is  apparently  the  will 
of  God  for  some.  But  the  norm  is  never 
celibate  or  virginal.  The  norm  is  marriage, 
because  only  in  the  perfect  union  of  a  man 
and  woman  is  there  at  the  same  time  promise 
to  the  individual  of  completeness,  and  to  the 


2o6  Christian  Science 

race  perpetuation  in  circumstances  that  ensure 
the  proper  training  of  the  young. 

You  will  seek  in  vain  in  the  pages  of  Science 
and  Health  for  any  evidence  that  this  fact, 
perhaps  the  most  important  fact  in  sociology, 
has  any  place  in  Mrs.  Eddy's  mind.  Holding 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  matter,  she  sees 
no  sacramental  use  for  matter.  Believing  that 
"matter  is  not  the  medium  through  which  the 
Spirit  acts,"  ^  it  is  impossible  for  her  to  take 
the  view  of  marriage  which  those  hold  who 
have  the  sacramental  view  of  matter.  No 
intellect  can  be  big  enough  to  contain  two 
views  that  flatly  contradict  each  other. 

With  this  in  mind,  it  is  easy  to  understand 
Mrs.  Eddy's  treatment  of  marriage  and  the 
family.  She  goes  back  once  again  to  Jesus. 
She  explains  the  immaculate  conception  by 
the  identification  of  Christian  Science  with 
the  Holy  Ghost:  "The  Science  of  being 
overshadowed  the  sense  of  the  Virgin  mother, 
with  a  full  recognition  that  Spirit  is  the  basis 
of  being."  ^  She  calls  "  His  birth  what  every 
one's  should  be."  ^  She  says  the  time  is 
coming  of  which  Jesus  spoke  when  He  de- 
clared that  there  shall  be  no  more  marrying 
nor  giving  in  marriage.  She  insists  that 
''  matrimony   must   lose   its   present   slippery 


Marriage  and  the  Family         207 

footing  and  find  permanence  in  a  more  spir- 
itual adherence."  '^  Though  "  to  abolish  mar- 
riage at  this  period,  and  maintain  morality 
and  generation,  would  put  ingenuity  to  ludi- 
crous shifts,"  she  still  insists  that  "  this  is 
possible."  ^  She  longs  for  a  day  when  mar- 
riage shall  have  passed  away,  and  adds: 
"Proportionately  as  human  generation  ceases, 
the  unbroken  links  of  eternal  harmonious  be- 
ing will  be  spiritually  discerned;  and  man  not 
of  the  earth  earthly  but  coexistent  with  God 
will  appear."  ^ 

Now  what  does  all  this  mean?  What  can 
it  mean  but  this:  that  as  the  Holy  Ghost, 
who  Mrs.  Eddy  says  is  really  Christian  Sci- 
ence, once  overshadowed  a  woman  and  the 
Virgin  Birth  was  the  result,  so  will  it  be  again 
when  w^omen  submit  themselves  to  Christian 
Science  as  the  mother  of  the  Master  did. 

Mrs.  Eddy  makes  appeal  to  Scriptures. 
She  regards  marriage,  her  interpreter  remarks, 
"  in  the  exact  sense  in  which  it  is  taught  in 
the  Scriptures."  He  explains  that  "  Christian 
Science,  like  Christianity,  points  to  the  higher 
spiritual  life  above  and  beyond  the  pale  of 
marriage  as  Jesus  did  in  His  declaration  '  but 
they  which  shall  be  accounted  worthy  to  obtain 
that  world,  and  the  resurrection  from  the  dead^ 


2o8  Christian  Science 

neither  marry,  nor  are  given  in  marriage.'  " 
Nothing  could  be  clearer  than  these  words. 
The  trouble  is  that  they  furnish  another  glar- 
ing instance  of  the  proof-text  habit  which 
has  often  brought  the  Christian  Scientists  to 
grief.  The  passage  quoted  from  St.  Luke 
appears  in  its  essentials  also  in  St.  Matthew 
and  St.  Mark,  and  taken  with  the  context  in 
each  instance  evidently  means  that  marriage, 
birth,  and  death  belong  together  in  this  world, 
and  will  therefore  have  no  place  in  the  world 
to  come.  It  means  nothing  more  than  that  and 
cannot  be  given  a  Christian  Science  colouring. 
Jesus  often  spoke  about  the  resurrection  life 
as  though  it  is  to  have  no  sacramental  interests 
since  the  body  then  will  be  no  longer  physical 
but  spiritual.  ^^ 

St.  Paul  lights  up  the  situation  with  his 
conception,  for  which  many  words  of  Jesus 
furnish  apparent  justification,  of  the  im- 
mediate second  coming  of  our  Lord.  He 
writes  to  the  Thessalonians : 

For  the  Lord  himself  shall  descend  from  Heaven 
with  a  shout,  with  the  voice  of  the  Archangel,  and 
with  the  trump  of  God :  and  the  dead  in  Christ  shall 
rise  first.  Then  we  which  are  alive  and  remain 
shall  be  caught  up  together  with  them  in  the  clouds, 
to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air:  and  so  shall  we  ever 
be  with  the  Lord.  ^^ 


Marriage  and  the  Family         209 

But  Mrs.  Eddy  teaches,  as  we  have  long 
since  learned,  that  the  body  is  already  as 
spiritual  as  it  will  ever  be  if  we  will  but  believe 
it  is,  and  that  Christ  has  already  come  again  in 
Christian  Science.  The  time  is  therefore  evi- 
dently ripe  for  all  who  would  live  up  to  the 
central  principle  of  Christian  Science,  to  pro- 
claim with  the  mad  Hamlet:  "We  will  have 
no  more  marriages:  those  that  are  married  al- 
ready .  .  .  shall  live;  the  rest  shall  keep  as 
they  are." 

In  the  face  of  all  these  facts  ^Irs.  Eddy's 
spokesman  still  insists  that  she  is  conventional 
in  her  view^s  of  marriage.  He  says  she  has 
never  advocated  any  other  method  for  the 
perpetuation  of  the  species  and  singles  out 
in  proof  a  doubtful  word  from  her  Retro- 
spection and  Introspection.^^ 

The  appeal  is  made  to  Caesar.  To  Caesar 
let  us  go. 

In  the  first  edition  of  Science  and  Health, 
published  in  1875,  Mrs.  Eddy  puts  herself  on 
record  thus: 

The  material  world,  at  a  future  time  will  become 
a  spectacle  of  disorder  and  dismay  on  one  hand, 
and  of  Science  on  the  other.  There  will  be  convul- 
sions of  mind  and  consequently  of  matter,  spasms, 
earthquakes,  famine,  and  pestilence.     Sickness  will 

14 


2IO  Christian  Science 

become  acute  and  death  more  sudden:  but  to 
those  who  understand  this  hour,  as  explained  in 
the  science  of  being,  length  of  days  will  increase, 
and  harmony  and  immortality  be  near,  even  at  the 
door.  Knowledge  will  then  diminish  and  lose 
estimate  in  the  sight  of  man:  and  spirit  instead  of 
matter  be  made  the  basis  of  generation.  ^^ 

In  1881  we  find  her  writing:  "The  time 
cometh  when  there  will  be  no  marrying  or 
giving  in  marriage.  .  .  .  Soul  will  ultimately 
claim  its  own,  and  the  voice  of  personal  sense 
be  hushed."  ^^  In  1888  she  states  that  "mar- 
riage is  the  only  legal  and  moral  provision 
for  generation  among  the  higher  species"; 
but  then  she  neutralises  her  words  by  the  hint 
that  marriage  w^ill  no  longer  be  when  people 
learn  that  "  generation  rests  on  no  sexual 
basis."  ^^  Ten  years  later  she  remarks  that 
reproduction  is  due  to  belief,  and  in  illustra- 
tion later  adds:  "The  propagation  of  their 
species  by  butterfly,  bee,  and  moth,  without 
the  customary  presence  of  male  companions, 
is  a  discovery  corroborative  of  Science  of 
Mind."  ^« 

Troubled  by  the  storm  of  criticism,  in  the 
latest  editions  of  Science  and  Health,  Mrs. 
Eddy  sets  herself  at  the  correction  of  the 
reader's  true  impression  of  her  views.     She 


Marriage  and  the  Family         211 

vows  in  1906  that  the  only  person  she  has 
ever  known  who  believed  in  agamogenesis 
"  was  suffering  from  incipient  insanity,"  ^^ 
and  hints  that  she  is  not  that  person.  But  it 
is  difficult  to  take  Mrs.  Eddy  seriously  when 
in  the  next  paragraph  appears  the  sentence 
that  "  proportionately  as  human  generation 
ceases,  the  unbroken  links  of  eternal  harmo- 
nious being  will  be  spiritually  discerned  "  ^^ ; 
when  later  in  the  book  there  reappears  the 
analogy  above  of  the  butterfly  and  bee  and 
moth;  and  when  she  states  outright  that  "to 
no  longer  marry  or  be  given  in  marriage"  does 
not  mean  race  suicide/^ 

But  if  we  have  failed  to  grasp  the  meaning 
of  Mrs.  Eddy's  words,  if  we  are  to  be  guided 
solely  by  her  latest,  not  her  earlier  utterances, 
and  to  assume  that  the  correction  of  some 
passages  implies  the  correction  of  all,  if  Mrs. 
Eddy  does  believe  with  heart  and  soul  in  the 
perpetuation  of  the  species  sacramentally 
through  marriage  in  the  years  to  come  as  in 
these  ages  past,  why  does  not  the  great  organ  in 
the  Mother  Church  at  Boston  more  frequently 
peal  out  the  wedding  march?  Why  is  no 
Christian  Scientist  specially  commissioned  to 
solemnise  a  marriage?  Why  is  the  Church 
Manual,  which  is  so  explicit  in  its  directions 


212  Christian  Science 

on  all  other  themes,  silent  as  to  marriage, 
except  for  this  one  ominous  note:  "  If  a 
Christian  Scientist  is  to  be  married,  the 
ceremony  shall  be  performed  by  a  clergyman 
[of  some  other  fold]  who  is  legally  author- 
ised "?  -^  And  why  has  not  the  Mother  Church 
in  Boston,  with  its  seating  capacity  of  five 
thousand  and  its  resident  membership  doubt- 
less larger,  made  provisions  for  a  larger  Sun- 
day-school than  one  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
i  members  ?  ^^ 

Is  it  conceivable  that  informed  Christian 
Scientists  are  ignorant  of  these  facts  which 
an  outside  student  has  so  easily  unearthed? 
Certainly  no  Christian  Scientist  can  be  unin- 
formed who  was  at  a  Christian  Science  service 
anywhere  on  Sunday,  May  5,  1907.  For 
according  to  the  directions  of  the  Christian 
Science  Lesson  Quarterly,  which  has  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  sage  of  Pleasant  View,  every 
Second  Reader  in  the  world  read  to  the 
Christian  Science  thousands  everywhere  that 
day  these  words  from  the  Bible:  "After 
this  I  looked  and,  behold,  a  door  was  opened 
in  heaven:  and  the  first  voice  which  I  heard 
was  as  it  were  of  a  trumpet  talking  with  me; 
which  said  Come  up  hither,  and  I  will  shew 
thee  things  which  must  be  hereafter."     And 


Marriage  and  the  Family         213 

then  the  First  Reader  antiphoned  in  voice  so- 
norous and  melhfluous :  "  Proportionately  as 
human  generation  ceases,  the  unbroken  links 
of  eternal  harmonious  being  will  be  spiritually 
discerned." 

The  American  public,  which  insists  upon 
publicity  on  all  dark  spots  in  public  life  to- 
day, is  beginning  to  suspect  that  Mrs.  Eddy, 
who  has  had  three  husbands  and  one  child,  has 
one  view  for  her  followers  and  another  for  the 
world,  that  she  is  secretly  encouraging  the 
dangerous  theory  that  marriage  and  celibacy 
are  now  possible,  or  will  some  day  be,  in  the 
same  home  without  race  suicide  ^^  and  disa- 
vowing it  through  her  official  representatives 
when  questioned  by  the  now  suspicious  pub- 
lic. If  the  suspicion  is  unwarranted,  it  can 
be  allayed  not  by  overlaying  the  objectionable 
passages  with  explanations  which  do  not  en- 
lighten, but  by  cutting  them  out  root  and 
branch. 

There  is  no  reason  for  alarm,  't  is  said.  It 
may  be  centuries  before  "  the  world  reaches 
the  point  of  perfect  spirituality  where  there 
will  be  no  flesh  to  propagate." 

The  duty  is,  however,  Mrs.  Eddy  constantly 
insists,  to  make  ready  for  the  day.  Give  up 
your  sacramental  view  of  life.     Put  off  the 


214  Christian  Science 

obligations  it  involves.  There  is  a  higher  es- 
tate in  marriage  than  parenthood,  and  any 
woman  who  can  win  her  husband's  consent 
may  decline  motherhood  to  "  win  a  higher  " 
married  state.^^  "  He  that  loveth  father  or 
mother  more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me,"  ^* 
Mrs.  Eddy  announces  even  to  prospective  ser- 
vants. "  Jesus,"  she  says,  "  acknowledged 
no  ties  of  the  flesh."  ^^  Jesus  "  teaches  mor- 
tals to  lay  down  their  fleshliness  in  order  to  gain 
spirituality,"  she  remarks  in  curious  confusion 
of  the  flesh  with  the  ties  of  the  flesh.  The 
duty  is  to  make  the  least  and  not  the  most  of 
all  relationships.^^  God  "  is  man's  only  real 
relative  on  earth  and  in  heaven."  ^^  "  Would 
existence  be  to  you  a  blank  without  personal 
friends?  "  "  This  vacuum  must  be  filled  with 
Principle  instead  of  person."  ^^  Do  you  long 
for 

"...    the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand, 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still "? 

"  When  our  friends  pass  from  our  sight  and 
we  lament,  that  lamentation  is  needless  and 
causeless."  ^^ 

*^  Pain  and  grief  are  shards  of  the  poignant  dream 
That  matter  is  supreme."  ^^ 

But  why  multiply  our  instances?     Now  we 


Marriage  and  the  Family         215 

see  whither  Christian  Science  tends.  It  tends 
ultimately,  when  a  generation  of  pure  Chris- 
tian Scientists  shall  have  succeeded  this,  more 
Christian  after  all  than  Christian  Scientist,  to- 
ward the  disintegration  of  the  family. 

If  there  is  one  cause  for  which  all  who  love 
their  kind  must  stand  together  in  these  days 
it  is  the  family.  Only  as  we  first  make  the 
most  of  the  family  can  we  next  make  any- 
thing of  society  at  large.  Only  as  we  give 
ourselves  devotedly  to  the  relationships  of 
home,  loving  ardently,  missing  unspeakably 
when  death  intervenes,  in  every  way  loyal  and 
obedient  to  the  bonds  of  pure  affection,  shall 
we  have  anything  to  give  to  man  or  God  out- 
side the  family.  All  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  talk 
about  the  love  of  God  apart  from  love  to 
those  who  have  first  right  to  our  love  is  beside 
the  mark.  One  would  think  she  has  never 
heard  St.  John's  penetrating  question:  "  He 
that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen, 
how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen?  " 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  abstract  love. 
Love  exists  only  in  relationships.  That  is  the 
reason  why  God  has  always  been,  before  the 
world  began,  a  social  God,  a  Trinitarian  God. 
It  is  only  by  becoming  so  ineffably  dear  to 
one  another  that  the  pain  of  one  is  another's 


2i6  Christian  Science 

pain,  the  death  of  one  another's  heartbreak, 
that  society  can  hold  together.  Loosen  the 
family  ties  by  transferring  the  affections  to 
a  mere  abstraction  by  the  name  of  Principle, 
create  the  suspicion  that  God  has  claims  on 
any  one  which  take  precedence  of  the  duties  of 
the  family,  twist  the  words  of  Jesus  to  pur- 
poses unwarranted  by  exegesis  or  steal  them 
from  their  context  or  make  them  contradict 
His  life-long  policy  and  His  world-wide  in- 
fluence in  the  upbuilding  of  the  family,  and 
civilisation  will  crumble,  the  family  will  fall  to 
pieces,  and  any  saving  remnant  there  may 
chance  to  be  will  have  to  face  the  sore  tempta- 
tion of  the  Gnostics  who  began  by  denying 
the  existence  of  the  flesh  and  ended  by  in- 
dulging it.^^ 

Mrs.  Eddy  may  be  right  and  we  wrong. 
But  it  will  require  more  than  Mrs.  Eddy's 
word  to  convince  us, 

"  who  live  beneath 
The  shadow  of  the  steeple; 
The  parson  and  the  parson's  wife, 
And  mostly  married  people,"  ^^ 

that  all  the  tears  and  blood,  the  tragedy  and 
travail  of  countless  years  to  make  love  rule     | 
in  the  sacramental  relationships  of  family  and 


Marriage  and  the  Family         217 

church  and  state,  are  mere  illusions  to  be 
flung  aside  whenever  Mrs.  Eddy  thinks  we 
know  enough  to  do  without  them. 

Furthermore,  as  the  perilous  and  the  per- 
nicious in  the  metaphysics  of  Christian 
Science  grow  more  evident,  public  opinion, 
which  always  has  the  final  word,  will  grow 
more  insistent  that  Christian  Scientists  divorce 
their  philosophy  from  their  healing,  recognise 
the  limitations  of  suggestion,  submit  their 
system  to  an  honest  scientific  test,  and  give 
it  a  more  modest  place  among  the  various 
forms  of  mental  healing  which  are  perhaps 
doing  as  good  work  as  Christian  Science 
without  detaching  people  from  their  normal 
church  relations  or  fooling  with  the  funda- 
mentals of  experience. 

If  Christian  Science,  in  spite  of  every 
warning,  persists  along  its  present  course, 
public  opinion  will  one  day  place  it  legally 
in  the  category  where  it  logically  belongs, 
with  all  those  subtler  types  of  anarchy  which 
disappear  when  men  see  them  as  they  are. 

There  are  three  stages  through  which  many 
of  us  pass  who  study  Christian  Science  with 
the  desire  to  find  out  what  it  really  is. 

1.  The   stage   in   which   we   are   somewhat 


2i8  Christian  Science 

amused  at  its  conspicuous  absurdities,  at 
which  Christian  Scientists  themselves  have 
been  known  to  smile,  and  yet  speak  not  against 
it  because  we  have  seen  instances  in  which  sick 
bodies  and  sick  souls  have  seemed  to  improve 
under  its  influence. 

2.  The  stage  in  which  we  are  for  a  time 
bewildered  by  the  other-worldliness  and  seren- 
ity of  many  a  Christian  Science  character  and 
wonder  if  after  all  there  may  not  be  much  in 
Christian  Science. 

3.  The  stage  in  which  after  hard  reading 
and  honest  thinking  we  see  the  structural 
weakness  of  its  philosophy,  its  frequent  mis- 
representations of  the  teachings  of  our  Lord, 
its  denial  of  the  limitations  of  suggestion  in 
the  interest  of  a  grotesque  theory,  and  its 
insidious  attack  upon  the  family  at  the  very 
source  even  while  it  inculcates  many  family 
virtues. 

And  when  we  reach  the  third  stage  there 
is  one  thing  and  one  only  for  those  to  do  who 
feel  some  responsibility  to  "  the  God  of  things 
as  they  are."  That  is,  to  state  the  entire 
truth  concerning  this  fatuous  folly  which 
seems  to  have  a  weird  affinity  for  crude  in- 
tellects and  undisciplined  emotions. 

Christian    Science    will    not    crush    historic 


Marriage  and  the  Family         219 

Christianity.  Truth  needs  no  caretakers. 
Truth  needs  only  witnesses.  But  there  are  in 
every  church  good  people,  simple,  honest 
and  devout,  who  have  had  little  or  no  training 
in  philosophy  or  science.  It  is  they  whom 
Christian  Science  oftenest  allures  from  their 
allegiance.  It  is  with  them  in  mind  that  every 
thoughtful  reader  of  this  book  who  loves  his 
fellow  man  will  lose  no  opportunity  to  explain 
exactly  as  it  is  the  theory  and  practice  of 
Christian  Science  until  in  the  white  light  of 
publicity  the  error  and  the  evil  in  it  shrivel  up 
and  disappear,  and  it  takes  its  place  among 
the  far  too  many  sects  which  justify  them- 
selves by  the  pragmatic  quickening  they  give 
to  souls  untouched  by  other  agencies. 

If  this  brings  unhappiness  to  some  who 
now  find  comfort  in  the  Christian  Science 
faith,  there  is  but  one  word  to  be  said,  that 
duty  to  truth  comes  before  the  privilege  of 
happiness.  No  comfort,  no  serenity,  no 
peace  can  last  which  does  not  rest  on  truth. 
As  a  wise  Englishman  has  said: 

Those  who  flinch  from  inquiry  because  they  dread 
the  possible  conclusion;  who  turn  aside  from  the 
path  as  soon  as  they  catch  a  glimpse  of  an  unwel- 
come goal ;  who  hold  their  dearest  hopes  only  on  the 
tenure   of   a   closed   eye   and   a   repudiating   mind, 


220  Christian  Science 

will,  sooner  or  later,  have  to  encounter  that  in- 
evitable hour  when  doubt  will  not  be  silenced  and 
inquiry  can  no  longer  be  put  by;  when  the  spectres 
of  old  misgivings,  which  have  been  rudely  repulsed, 
and  of  questionings,  which  have  been  sent  empty 
away,  will  return  to  ^'  haunt,  to  startle,  to  waylay," 
and  will  then  find  their  faith  crumbling  away  at 
the  moment  of  greatest  need.^^ 


NOTES 

The  following  abbreviations  are  used:  S.  &  H.  for  Sci- 
ence and  Health;  M.  W.  for  Miscellaneous  Writings;  R.  & 
I.  for  Retrospection  and  Introspection;  P.  &  P.  for  Pulpit 
and  Press;  C.  S.  v.  P.  for  Christian  Science  versus  Pan- 
theism; and  C.  S.  invariably  for  Christian  Science. 

The  writer  has  made  use  of  several  editions  of  S.  &  H. 
When  no  date  is  given  the  edition  of  1906  should  be  as- 
sumed. The  edition  of  1898  is  often  cited  because  it 
contains  an  excellent  index  omitted  from  recent  editions 
in  the  interest — it  would  seem — of  the  new  Concordance 
of  which  the  selling  price  is  five  dollars. 

References  to  magazines,  weekly  journals,  and  daily 
papers  are  for  the  year  1907  unless  another  year  is  given. 
Where  more  than  one  book  by  the  same  author  is  men- 
tioned the  specific  reference  is  always  to  the  first  book 
listed  in  the  Bibliography,  p.  ix.  under  the  author's  name. 

To  the  Bibliography  should  be  added  James's  Pragma- 
tism and  The  Christ  that  is  to  be,  which  has  appeared 
since  the  Bibliography  passed  into  proof. 


CHAPTER  I 

1. 

2. 
3. 

4. 
5. 

R.  &  I.,  20. 
S.  &  H.,  VII. 
S.  &  H.,  126. 
S.  &  H.,  107. 
McClure's,  March,   507. 

6.  Manual,    3. 

7.  Letters  dated  December  5  and  18,  1890,  written  by 
Mrs.   Eddy. 

8.  C.    S.    Bible    Quarterly    Lessons,    April-June;    Ex- 
planatory Note.     The  italics  appear  in  the   Quarterly. 

221 


22  2  Notes 

9.     R.  &  I.,  89. 

10.  S.  &  H.,  202. 

11.  R.  &  I.,  88. 

12.  S.  &  H.,  474. 

13.  S.  &  H.,  131-142.  On  his  visit  to  Mrs.  Eddy, 
August  12th,  Dr.  Allan  McLane  Hamilton  found  that  Mrs. 
Eddy  even  in  her  earlier  life  had  the  habit  of  "  criticising 
the  older  ministers." — C.  S.  Sentinel,  Aug.  24. 

14.  S.  &  H.,  142.  As  the  author  reads  these  notes  in 
proof  a  new  edition  of  S.  &  H.  appears  in  which  Mrs. 
Eddy  makes  the  passage  more  severe  by  substituting  the 
word  "  worship  "  for  "  policy." 

15.  Manual,   57. 

16.  M.  W.,  106. 

17.  S.  &  H.,  201. 

18.  McClure's,  May,  103.  In  S.  &  H.,  324,  Mrs.  Eddy 
describes  the  new  convert  to  C.  S.  as  full  of  "  gladness  to 
leave  the  dark  landmarks  and  joy  to  see  them  disappear." 

19.  The  Christian  Science  Publication  Committee 
(Human  Life,  January,  1907,  p.  5)  states  that  "  the  Chris- 
tian Science  Church  does  not  proselyte."  Yet  Mrs.  Eddy 
(Manual,  79)  appears  by  implication  to  encourage  prose- 
lyting, except  among  Roman  Catholics.  It  is  a  self-evi- 
dent fact  that  the  C.  S.  Church  is  made  up  largely  of 
"  come-outers."  Dr.  F.  J.  Fluno,  Christian  Science  Lect- 
urer, says  every  convert  "  brings  ten."  Every  clergyman 
who  has  lost  members  of  his  flock  to  C.  S.  understands  the 
pervasiveness  of  C.  S.  proselyting.  While  the  policy  is 
not  to  seem  to  make  it  easy  to  join  the  C.  S.  Church,  the 
way  is  always  indicated  by  the  constant  pressure,  especi- 
ally in  the  care  of  those  under  C.  S.  treatment  for  some 
ills,  to  exclude  all  intellectual  interests  except  those  for 
which  S.  &  H.  stands,  to  confine  the  fellowship  to  those 
of  C.  S.  sympathies,  and  to  give  more  thought  and  time 
and  affection  to  the  development  of  C.  S.  friendships  than 
affinity  or  the  fitness  of  things  would  sometimes  indicate. 
While  these  are  the  facts  in  evidence,  the  author  is  glad 
to  testify  that  the  motive  seems  to  be  identical  with  that 
of  the  early  Christians, — to  drive  out  the  old  in  order  to 


Notes  223 

substitute  a  new  faith  believed  to  be  the  only  true  faith. 
Mrs.  Eddy  hints  (S.  &  H.,  328)  that  the  Bible  is  errone- 
ously interpreted  by  Christian  missionaries  in  India  be- 
cause hundreds  still  die  there  every  year  from  snake 
bites.  She  is  apparently  ignorant  of  the  real  nature  of 
the  work  missionaries  are  doing  everywhere.  "  They 
are,"  says  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  "  physicians  as 
well  as  priests.  They  build  hospitals  and  administer 
them.  They  establish  printing  presses  and  direct  them. 
They  are  linguists  who  translate  a  whole  religious  litera- 
ture into  the  imperfect  dialect  of  primitive  tribes.  They 
are  advisers  at  the  courts  of  Eastern  princes,  and  instruc- 
tors at  colleges  planted  in  regions  of  dense  ignorance. 
They  are  usually  in  advance  of  traders,  and  find  them- 
selves at  length  opposing  the  vices  of  civilisation  on  the 
one  hand  and  those  of  barbarism  on  the  other."  When 
Christian  Science  turns  its  energies  away  from  winning 
Christians  to  the  winning  of  the  heathen  it  will  then  be 
time  enough  to  criticise  the  missionary  efforts  of  the 
Christian  Church. 

20.  Cushman,  16;  Newton,  2;  Mark  Twain,  286;  Broad- 
way  Magazine,  May,  151;  Rev.  Lewis  R.  Bates,  D.D., 
quoted  in  C.  S.  Sentinel,  Aug.  10. 

21.  Snyder,  2. 

22.  Case. 

23.  Isaiah  1:13,  14;  Micah  6:8. 

24.  Arena,  January,  59. 

CHAPTER  II 

1.  S.  &  H.,  456. 

2.  C.    S.   B.   Q.   Lessons,   Exp.   Note.     Rev.   Irving  C. 

Tomlinson,  official  representative  of  Mrs.  Eddy,  thus 
comments :  "  The  Bible  and  the  C.  S.  text-book  are  our 
only  preachers.  As  the  discourses  are  made  up  wholly  of 
passages  from  the  Bible  and  the  C.  S.  text-book,  they 
contain  nothing  of  human  opinion;  they  are  devoid 
of  man-made  theories.  They  voice  the  eternal  fact 
concerning  the  everlasting  Truth.  They  set  forth  the 
realities   of   being;    they   inform,   instruct,    and    enlighten 


2  24  Notes 


concerning  the  verities  of  God  and  man." — Reprint  from 
the  C.   S.  Sentinel. 

3.  R.  &  I.,  55. 

4.  Mark   Twain,  142. 

5.  Manual,   31. 

6.  New  York  Sun,   Feb.  25,  1903. 

7.  Mark  Twain,  257. 

8.  Northampton    (Mass.)   Herald,  Feb.  16  and  18. 

9.  Compare  successive  editions  of   S.  &  H. 

10.  C.  S.  B.  Q.  Lessons,  Ibid. 

11.  The  author  has  made  the  estimate  of  Mrs.  Eddy's 
wealth  from  the  affidavits,  not  altogether  clear,  filed  in 
Concord,  N.  H.,  May  17  and  18,  and  published  in  the  C. 
S.  Sentinel  of  May  25.  In  the  "  Masters  "  interview,  Aug. 
14,  with  Mrs.  Eddy  as  reported  in  the  Boston  Herald, 
Aug.  15,  Mrs.  Eddy  admitted  the  transfer  of  property 
amounting  to  $913,000  to  trustees.  This  apparently  does 
not  include  her  real  estate  in  Concord  now  assessed  at 
$55,000  according  to  counsel  for  "  next  friends  "  in  the 
recent  lawsuit,  and  other  investments  which  so  far  as  the 
reader  can  determine  are  indicated  in  the  C.  S.  Sentinel 
of  May  25  and  apparently  bring  her  estate  up  to  or  be- 
yond the  million  dollar  mark.  The  amount  must  be  a 
surprise  to  Mrs.  Eddy's  followers  as  well  as  others;  for 
in  his  C.  S.  History,  published  a  few  years  ago.  Judge 
Hanna  after  stating  that  Mrs.  Eddy's  charities  from 
1896  to  1899  averaged  $88,987  a  year,  adds  that  but  for 
her  economical  habit  of  living  Mrs.  Eddy  would  be  a 
millionaire.  Her  fortune  at  her  death,  the  C.  S.  Senti- 
nel of  Aug.  24  informs  us,  is  to  go  to  her  church. 

It  has  been  stated  that  there  is  no  compulsion  on 
any  one  to  buy  S.  &  H.,  and  that  those  outside,  since  they 
have  access  to  copies  in  the  public  libraries,  have  no  right 
to  criticise  the  author  of  the  book  for  selling  it  at  a  price 
apparently  prohibitive  to  some.  The  twofold  reply  to 
this  is  evident:  (1)  The  ethical  sense  of  the  modern 
world  has  advanced  beyond  the  point  the  C.  S.  Sentinel 
(quoting  from  the  Concord  Daily  Patriot),  Aug.  24,  p. 
967,  makes  that  "  a  fortune  "  is  or  can  be  "  the  logical  re- 
sult of  the  teachings  "  of  a  great  religious  leader.     It  is 


Notes  225 

now  too  late  in  the  development  of  the  country's  ethical 
instinct  to  make  acquisitiveness  a  Christian  virtue. 
Christianity  will  not  to-day  consent  to  put  a  premium  on 
the  money-getting  which  Mrs.  Eddy's  whole  career  has 
illustrated  in  general,  and  her  management  of  S.  &  H.  has 
emphasised  in  particular.  (2)  The  ethical  sense  of  the 
modern  world  is  now  engaged  in  bringing  to  justice  cer- 
tain large  corporations  which  are  extracting  enormous 
profits  from  the  pockets  of  the  poor  for  the  necessities  of 
life.  Mrs.  Eddy's  constant  claim  that  S.  &  H.  is  neces- 
sary to  man's  well-being,  to  his  actual  existence  if  he 
happens  to  fall  ill,  makes  the  book  to  those  who  follow 
in  her  train  as  truly  a  necessity  as  food  and  oil  are  to 
the  world  at  large.  To  hold  her  book  at  a  price  relatively 
as  high  as  that  the  corporations  set  upon  their  wares  is 
logically  to  invite  the  same  condemnation  they  are  now 
receiving.  To  solve  the  problem  by  giving  copies  gratui- 
tously to  those  obliged  to  plead  their  poverty  is  spiritual 
pauperisation.  To  send  them  to  C.  S.  reading-rooms  or 
public  libraries  is  "  soup-house  "  evangelisation.  The  mod- 
ern conscience  is  not  content  with  the  suggestion. 

For  years  Mrs.  Eddy  steadily  encouraged  her  follow- 
ers through  the  pages  of  the  Journal  of  Christian  Science 
in  giving  her  presents.  She  regularly  published  in  its 
columns  the  list  of  presents  sent  her,  including  once  "  a 
21-pound  turkey,"  again  an  "  eider-down  pillow,"  once 
again  a  "  linen  handkerchief."  A  partial  list  will  be 
found  in  McClure's,  October,  689,  690;  also  a  letter,  of 
which  the  writer  has  seen  the  original,  written  by  Mrs. 
Eddy  in  1890  to  her  publisher  in  protest  against  his  sug- 
gestion that  she  omit  her  list  of  Christmas  gifts  from  the 
Journal.  The  following  is  her  ingenious  argument: 
"  Students  are  constantly  telling  me  how  they  felt  the 
mental  impression  this  year  to  make  me  no  presents,  and 
when  they  overcame  it  were  strengthened  and  blessed. 
For  this  reason,  viz.,  to  discourage  mental  malpractice 
and  to  encourage  those  who  beat  it — I  want  that  notice 
published."  To  the  inference  that  Mrs.  Eddy  was  solicit- 
ing presents  there  is  but  the  alternative  that,  according 
to  her  theory,  she  v/as  under  the  dominion  of  the  obsession 


226  Notes 

of  malicious  animal  magnetism  and  was  therefore  not 
responsible  for  her  conduct.  The  italics  above  are  Mrs. 
Eddy's. 

12.  Mark   Twain,  254. 

13.  S.  &  H.  (1898),  443;  Cosmopolitan,  March,  541; 
July,  331. 

14.  Wood,   146-152;    Patterson,   9-22. 

15.  Wright,  17,  28,  and  McClure's,  October.  John 
Henry  Wiggin  was  one  of  the  cleverest  and  most  culti- 
vated men  ever  in  any  capacity  associated  with  Mrs. 
Eddy.  From  1885  to  1890  he  was  her  literary  adviser. 
He  assisted  in  the  editing  of  the  Journal,  and  rewrote  S. 
&  H.  so  that  in  the  edition  of  1886  it  became  practically 
a  new  book  in  form  and  phrase.  One  chapter  called 
"  Wayside  Hints,"  was  in  thought  as  well  as  word  the 
work  of  Mr.  Wiggin.  Mrs.  Eddy  first  used  it  Jan.  24, 
1886,  as  a  sermon  without  accrediting  it  to  Mr.  Wiggin, 
and  after  the  service  with  eyes  twinkling  inquired  of  him 
in  a  stage  whisper  "  How  did  it  go?  "  Then  she  inserted 
it  bodily  in  S.  &  H.  adding  in  one  paragraph  two  brief 
sentences  in  execrable  taste  in  praise  of  her  late  hus- 
band. Through  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Livingston  Wright, 
the  author  has  seen  the  very  copies  of  S.  &  H.  which  Mr. 
Wiggin  used  in  his  revision,  in  connection  with  a  MS. 
Mrs.  Eddy  furnished  and  therefore  speaks  with 
confidence.  Mr.  Wiggin,  though  discharging  his  full 
duty  as  a  literary  helper,  never  took  Mrs.  Eddy  very 
seriously.  In  a  letter  in  1889  to  a  college  friend  he  wrote 
of  her  as  "  an  awfully  smart  woman,  acute,  shrewd,  but 
not  well  read,  nor  in  any  way  learned."  She  began  to 
complain  in  1890  of  his  "most  shocking  flippancy,"  and 
the  relationship  a  little  later  was  severed. 

16.  Mark  Twain,  289.  Nothing  is  more  remarkable 
than  Mrs.  Eddy's  steady  growth  in  her  old  age  in  the  art 
of  literary  expression.  She  has  never  wearied  of  work- 
ing on  S.  &  H.  Not  a  day  passes,  it  is  said,  that  she  does 
not,  even  now,  put  some  touch  on  her  book.  Her  sub- 
junctive once  intractable,  as  is  pointed  out  in  McClure*s, 
has  grown  obedient  to  her  will.  She  no  longer  gives  sub- 
jects to  participles  or  antecedents  to  pronouns,  and  her 


Notes  227 

tenses  now  stay  where  they  belong.  There  is  still  vague- 
ness in  S.  &  H.,  but  in  her  recent  public  letters,  barring 
an  occasional  hiatus  of  thought,  there  is  much  to  justify 
Dr.  Allan  McLane  Hamilton's  judgment  of  Aug.  12,  that 
"  her  mode  of  expression  is  logical  and  connected."  C.  S. 
Sentinel,  Aug.  24. 

17.  Micou,  34.  Professor  George  L.  Gary  calls  G.  S. 
"  One   Substance   Pantheism." 

18.  R.  &  I.,  20. 

19.  Irving  F.  Wood,  preface. 

20.  G.  S.  Sentinel,  June  15. 

21.  S.  &  H.,  Gh.  XVII.  See  also  the  Expository 
Times,  London,  July,  for  article  by  Rev.  H.  W.  Horwill 
on  Mrs.  Eddy's  exegesis  and  Mr.  Dixon's  inadequate  re- 
ply quoted  in  the  G.  S.  Sentinel,  Sept.  21. 

22.  S.  &  H.,  16,  533,  545,  538. 

23.  Mark  Twain,  335-343. 

24.  Heine    quoted    in    Farrar. 

25.  S.  &  H.   (1898),  154. 

26.  S.  &  H.  12. 

27.  S.  &  H.    (1898),  476. 

28.  S.  &  H.   (1875),  Ghs.  II  &  IV. 

29.  S.  &  H.    (1898),  347. 

30.  S.  &  H.  (1898),  385. 

As  the  author  reads  proof  of  these  notes  there  comes 
from  President  David  Starr  Jordan  of  Leland  Stanford 
University  this  confirmation  of  his  judgment:  "There  is 
no  element  of  permanence  in  the  cult.  I  agree  neither 
with  the  metaphysics  nor  with  the  English  of  Mrs.  Eddy. 
The  book  and  her  whole  doctrine  are  unintelligible.  She 
has  enthusiastic  followers,  to  be  sure,  and  they  build  huge 
temples,  because  there  are  many  who  like  that  which  is 
unintelligible,  and  those  same  ones  like  to  build  temples 
just  for  the  sake  of  building  them." — The  Congregation^ 
alist,  Sept.  14. 

CHAPTER  III 

1.  S.  &  H.,  110,  107. 

2.  McClure's,  Dec,  1906,  217, 


228  Notes 

3.  Quimby's  Scrapbook. 

4.  McClure's,   Feb.,   348. 

5.  McClure's,  Feb.,  349. 

7.  H.  W.  Dresser,  53. 

8.  New  York  World,  May  31,  confirmed  by  George  A. 
Quimby. 

9.  Letters  from  Mrs.  Eddy  to  P.  P.  Quimby,  which 
through  the  courtesy  of  George  A.  Quimby,  the  author 
has  read  in  full.     See  also  McClure's,  Feb.  349,  350. 

10-18.  Quimby  Scrapbook:  McClure's,  Feb.  345;  April, 
613;  interviews  with  Dr.  A.  M.  Gushing,  Messrs.  H.  T. 
Wentworth  and  Richard  Kennedy.  Letters  from  above; 
also  from  Mrs.  J.  R.  Walcott,  Mrs.  S.  G.  Crosby,  and 
Mr.  D.  H.  Spofford.  Mrs.  Eddy  was  then  Mrs.  Patter- 
son but  elected  to  be  called  Mrs.  Glover.  See  also  Mc- 
Clure's, March,  523,  520,  524.  Mrs.  Eddy's  explanation 
that  her  letters  to  P.  P.  Quimby  were  written  while  she 
was  under  mesmeric  influence  will  receive  small  con- 
sideration at  the  hands  of  the  few,  who  like  the  author, 
have  read  not  merely  the  extracts  from  them  published  in 
McClure's  but  also  the  originals  in  full. 

19.  H.   W.   Dresser,   120. 

20.  McClure's,  March,  509. 

21.  S.  &  H.    (1888),  7. 

22.  After  a  careful  study  of  the  Quimby  Scrapbook, 
which  has  been  in  the  author's  possession  for  a  month 
through  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  George  A.  Quimby,  the  writer 
is  convinced  that  it  alone  should  suffice  to  close  the  case. 

23.  Sybil  Wilbur  in  Human  Life,  April. 

24.  Evans,  209,  210. 

25.  George  A.  Quimby's  refusal  to  accept  Mrs.  Eddy's 
proposition  in  the  light  of  the  Quimby  scrapbook,  Quimby 
manuscripts,  and  Mrs.  Eddy's  letters  to  Quimby,  is  en- 
tirely commendable  as  well  as  discreet,  and  incidentally 
an  apt  illustration  of  "  timeo  Danaos  et  dona  ferentes." 

Edward  J.  Arens  was  once  a  devoted  student  and 
helper  of  Mrs.  Eddy.  In  1881  he  published  a  pamphlet 
in  which  he  quoted  extensively  from  S.  &  H.  Mrs.  Eddy 
brought  suit  in  1883  for  infringement  of  copyright. 
Arens's   defense   was   that   he   had   borrowed   from    Mrs. 


Notes  229 

Eddy^s  book  what  she  had  taken  largely  from  P.  P. 
Quimby's  manuscripts.  Neither  being  able  to  produce  the 
manuscripts  in  court  nor  having  access  to  them  for  com- 
parison with  Mrs.  Eddy's  book,  Arens  could  not  prove  his 
case,  and  the  court  decided  that  he  had  violated  Mrs. 
Eddy's  copyright.  The  court  did  not  pass  upon  the  origin 
of  Mrs.  Eddy's  ideas  because  the  Quimby  manuscripts  were 
not  in  evidence,  and  without  them  the  moral  question  in- 
volved could  not  be  decided.  Only  the  legal  issue  as  be- 
tween Mrs.  Eddy  and  Arens  was,  or  could  be,  settled  by 
the  court.  Yet  Mrs.  Eddy  has  steadily  construed  the  de- 
cision as  a  "  vindication  in  the  United  States  court "  of 
her  claim  to  be  the  originator  of  her  healing  principle, 
and  her  English  representative,  Mr.  Frederick  Dixon,  in 
The  American  Queen  for  July,  echoes  her  claim  in  a  para- 
graph based  on  evident  unfamiliarity  both  with  the 
Quimby  manuscripts  and  the  details  of  the  trial.  See  J. 
A.  Dresser,  58;  M.  W.,  249;  McClure's,  March,  August, 
September. 

26.  The  Committee  claims  to  be  able  to  support  his 
statement  by  affidavits,  and  July  18th  wrote  the  writer 
thus :  "  I  have  in  my  possession  numerous  statements  and 
affidavits  from  reliable  persons  who  were  formerly  treated 
by  Mr.  P.  P.  Quimby  in  1861,  and  subsequent  thereto. 
They  invariably  affirm  that  his  treatment  consisted  of 
manipulations  and  that  he  never  attempted  to  practice  or 
teach  any  method  of  giving  a  mental  treatment,  and  that 
he  never  ascribed  the  peculiar  power  he  seemed  to  possess, 
to  God.  He  regarded  it  as  a  natural  gift  and  not  the  re- 
sult of  education."  Having  read,  as  the  Committee  has 
not,  Mrs.  Eddy's  letters  to  P.  P.  Quimby,  the  Quimby 
scrapbook,  and  the  Quimby  manuscripts,  the  author  is 
unable  to  imagine  any  evidence,  past,  present,  or  to  come, 
which  can  seriously  affect  in  any  way  the  Quimby  con- 
troversy. If,  however,  such  evidence  ever  comes  to  light 
and  proves  on  careful  examination  to  be  pertinent,  speci- 
fic, and  authentic,  the  author  will  be  prompt  in  admitting 
its  significance  and  revising  his  estimate.  He  would  like 
the  reader  distinctly  to  understand  that  he  spared  no 
effort  to  find  all  the  evidence  there  is.     If  there  still  is 


230  Notes 

evidence  not  considered  in  this  volume  the  fault,  as  his 
voluminous  correspondence  proves,  can  not  be  charged  to 
him.  He  repeatedly  sought  permission  to  make  a  care- 
ful study  of  the  evidence  the  Committee  claims  to  possess, 
but  he  always  sought  in  vain;  though  the  Committee  was 
generous  in  giving  information  on  other  themes. 

Mrs.  Eddy  has  made  much  of  Quimby's  recognition  of 
her  aptness  as  a  pupil  and  of  her  services  to  him.  But 
teachers  often  speak  in  terms  as  glowing  of  their  more 
promising  pupils.  Every  right-minded  teacher  of  the 
truth  likes  to  regard  himself  as  but  a  John  the  Baptist  to 
the  Christ  that  is  to  be.  Undoubtedly  Mrs.  Eddy's  news- 
paper tributes  to  Quimby  did  enlarge  his  reputation  and 
bring  him  patients.  But  his  son  assures  me  that  Quimby, 
like  most  busy  men  accustomed  to  receive  effusive  letters 
from  the  emotional,  gave  little  heed  to  Mrs.  Eddy's  com- 
munications, and  in  his  latter  days  concluded  that  she  had 
"  no    identity    in    honesty." 

The  visits  here  referred  to  in  the  text  are  the  ones  men- 
tioned in  more  inclusive  terms  in  the  Preface. 

The  following  unexpected  letter  speaks  for  itself: 

Belfast,  Maine, 
Oct.  18,  1907. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Powell: 

Having  had  the  pleasure  of  reading  so  much  of  the 
proof  sheets  of  your  forthcoming  book  as  relates  to  my 
father,  I  wish  to  express  my  pleasure  at  the  way  you 
have  treated  your  subject,  and  also  state,  that  the  quo- 
tations you  have  made  from  his  manuscripts,  which  you 
copied  at  my  house,  are  absolutely  correct,  and  were  taken 
from  his  writings  now  in  my  possession.  As  you  are 
aware,  most  of  your  extracts  were  written  by  him,  prior 
to  his  acquaintance  with  Mrs.  Eddy.  Thinking  that  there 
might  be  some  who  would  question  the  truth  of  your 
quotations,  I  have  without  any  suggestion  from  you  writ- 
ten this  explanation  which  you  are  at  liberty  to  use  in 
any  way  you  see  fit.     With  kind  regards,  I  am 

Very  truly, 

Geo.  a.  Quimby. 


Notes  231 

27.  The  author  has  consulted  many  of  the  witnesses 
who  testify  in  both  McClure's  and  Human  Life  and  in 
every  instance  he  has  been  informed  that  McClure's  ac- 
count is  to  be  accepted.  His  investigation  covers  most 
closely  the  issues  from  January  to  July  inclusive. 

28.  Mrs.  Eddy  did  not  originate  the  term  "  Christian 
Science."  Abram  Cowles  used  it  in  1840.  Rev.  William 
Adams  in  1850  published  a  book  entitled  Elements  of 
Christian  Science,  I  have  found  the  term  in  the  Quimby 
MSS.  See  H.  W.  Dresser,  239,  65,  and  McClure's,  March, 
513. 

"  Science  of  Health "  sometimes  appears  in  the 
Quimby  MSS. 

The  ten  quotations  that  follow  in  the  parallel  are  from 
the  MS.  "  Questions  and  Answers "  which  Mrs.  Eddy 
used  for  years  and  habitually  attributed  to  Quimby.  A 
copy  of  this  MS.  with  Mrs.  Eddy's  own  interlineations  in 
it  is  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  H.  T.  Wentworth  who  has 
kindly  shown  it  to  the  writer.  It  is  almost  word  for  word 
identical — the  writer  finds — with  one  of  the  Quimby  MSS. 
written  by  P.  P.  Quimby,  copied  by  his  wife,  and  bearing 
a  date  several  months  before  Mrs.  Eddy's  first  meeting 
with  Quimby.  This  MS.,  too,  he  has  seen  through  the 
courtesy  of  Mr.  George  A.  Quimby  and  McClure's  mag- 
azine. The  writer  has  copied  from  the  other  Quimby 
MSS.  many  pages  of  quotations  which  confirm  those  in 
"  Questions  and  Answers,"  and  leave  no  room  to  doubt 
that  the  MS.  as  it  stands,  with  its  introductory  para- 
graphs and  its  interlineations  is  as  Mrs.  Eddy  used  to 
say,  the  output  of  Quimby's  brain.  Mrs.  Eddy  has  made 
much  of  Quimby's  failure  to  draw  the  distinction  as 
sharply  as  she  draws  it  between  mind  and  matter.  But 
Quimby's  conception  was  more  nearly  Berkeleyan  than 
Mrs.  Eddy's.  See  James's  Pragmatism,  89,  and  Hanna's 
C.  S.  History,  33. 

The  quotations  from  S.  &  H.  beginning  with  the  third 
will  be  found  in  editions  as  follows:  (1898),  543;  (1881), 
169;  (1898),  449;  (1898),  183;  (1881),  169;  (1898),  491, 
513,  466,  478,  62.  The  "parallel"  itself  was  first  sug- 
gested by  Peabody,  17ff. 


232  Notes 

CHAPTER  IV 

1.  McClure's,  Jan.  237,  238;  Moll,  13ff. 

2.  Mrs.  Eddy's  published  reply  to  McClure's;  Human 
Life,  Feb. 

3.  R.  &  I.,  20. 

4.  McClure's,  Jan.  237,  241. 

George  Washington  Glover  disappears  from  his  mother's 
life  and  seldom  reappears  till  in  1907  he  figures  as  one  of 
the  "  next  friends  "  in  the  suit  of  Mi^s.  Eddy  vs.  C.  A. 
Frye  et.  al.  For  a  while  when  a  baby,  he  lived  with  his 
mother  at  his  aunt  Tilton's;  then  with  the  old  nurse,  with 
whom  after  her  marriage  he  removed  at  the  age  of  thir- 
teen to  Minnesota.  He  fought  through  the  Civil  War, 
became  U.  S.  marshal,  was  prospector  and  miner  for  a 
time,  and  settled  at  last  in  Lead,  South  Dakota,  where  his 
mother  built  for  him  and  furnished,  in  1902,  a  comfort- 
able house  in  which  he  still  resides. 

Influenced,  Mrs.  Eddy's  friends  claim,  by  those  un- 
friendly to  her,  he  and  others  brought  suit  as  "  next 
friends,"  March  1,  to  gain  the  legal  right  to  represent  her 
in  the  management  of  her  property,  which  they  asserted 
she  was  incompetent  to  manage.  The  suit  was  earnestly 
contested.  While  it  was  in  progress  Mrs.  Eddy  gave  sev- 
eral interviews  to  newspaper  reporters  in  which  she  ap- 
peared for  a  woman  of  eighty-six  to  be  singularly  vig- 
orous in  mind.  The  "  Masters,"  too,  had  an  important 
interview  with  her  on  Aug.  14th,  in  the  presence  of  the 
senior  counsel  on  each  side.  Two  alienists  of  reputation, 
Dr.  Allan  McLane  Hamilton  and  Dr.  Edward  French,  en- 
gaged by  Mrs.  Eddy  or  her  representatives,  pronounced 
her  competent  to  manage  her  affairs  though  their  opin- 
ions were  not  published  till  after  the  suit  was  on  August 
21st  abandoned  by  the  "  next  friends."  The  result  ap- 
peared to  be  a  virtual  victory  for  Mrs.  Eddy.  As  this 
book  goes  to  press  a  book  is  announced  by  R.  D.  Kath- 
rens  of  Kansas  City,  claiming  to  give  the  inside  history 
of  the  suit,  but  of  the  value  of  the  book  the  author  knows 
nothing. 

5.  6.    New   England  Magazine,   March,   1888;    H.   W. 


Notes  233 

Dresser,  Chs.  I  and  II;  McClure's,  Feb.;  Arena,  May,  1899; 
Boston  Herald,  Aug.  15.  The  facts  concerning  P.  P. 
Quimby  have  been  verified  by  his  son,  George  A.  Quimby. 

7.  J.  A.  Dresser.  Mrs.  Eddy  had  ample  opportunity 
to  become  familiar  with  Quimby's  ideas.  She  and  other 
favourite  pupil-patients  spent  many  an  hour  with  him 
after  office  hours  asking  him  questions  and  encouraging 
him  to  talk  in  his  characteristic  manner.  His  son  gave 
me  a  vivid  word  picture  of  the  unconventional  doctor  as 
in  the  late  afternoon,  wearied  by  the  long  day's  work,  he 
was  wont  to  lie  on  his  sofa  in  his  office  talking  freely  to 
the  patients  he  knew  best,  two  of  whom  were  in  those 
days  copying  the  notes  he  happened  then  to  be  making. 

8.  C.  S.  Sentinel,  Feb.  16,  1899. 

There  is  another  reason  why  Mrs.  Eddy's  claim  cannot 
be  substantiated.  Though  many  of  Quimby's  characteris- 
tic phrases  lodged  in  Mrs.  Eddy's  mind  to  be  reproduced 
practically  unchanged  in  her  writings  and  to  become  cur- 
rent coin  to-day  among  Christian  Scientists  everywhere, 
the  difference  in  style  between  the  Quimby  manuscripts 
and  Mrs.  Eddy's  writings  is  as  marked  as  between  Lin- 
coln's Gettysburg  address  and  S.  &  H.  The  language  of 
the  Quimby  manuscripts  is  direct.  As  one  of  his  old 
patients  writes  me,  "  One  did  n't  need  a  dictionary 
to  understand  Dr.  Quimby."  The  language  of  S.  &  H. 
is  as  already  described  in  Oh.  II.  The  difference  is  not 
alone  in  vocabulary  and  structure  of  sentences  but  also 
in  the  movement  of  the  mind.  Verbosity,  vagueness,  and 
overstatement  are  the  "  pinions " — quoting  Mrs.  Eddy's 
favourite  word — of  her  wings  (McClure's,  Oct.,  699),  and 
Quimby,  content  to  walk  on  the  solid  ground  of  clear  and 
simple  statement,  never  wanted  to  use  wings. 

9.  Huma7i  Life,   March;   McClure's,   February. 

10.  Dr.  Cushing's  affidavit  is  in  McClure's,  March, 
511.  The  author  had  a  personal  interview  with  him  May 
8.     See  also  Hutnan  Life,  May. 

11.  Times  Magazine,  March;  McClure's,  April,  619; 
Sept.,  532;  Human  Life,  June. 

12.  The  Stoughton  sketch  is  based  on  correspondence 
and  an  interview  of  May  6  and  its  facts  have  been  veri- 


234  Notes 

fied  by  Mr.   Wentworth   and   Mrs.   Clapp.     See   also  Mc- 
Clure's,  April,  620-622;  Human  Life,  May. 

13.  Quoted    from    an    unpublished    letter. 

14.  Letters  from,  and  interviews  with  Richard  Ken- 
nedy; also  McClure's,  May  and  July;  Human  Life,  June 
and  September. 

15.  R.  &  I.,  71.  The  "  strange  providence "  appar- 
ently was  a  suggestion  from  Richard  Kennedy  that  stu- 
dents would  probably  be  more  willing  to  pay  a  larger 
price  for  tuition  than  to  mortgage  their  future  by  prom- 
ising to  pay  Mrs.  Eddy  ten  per  cent,  on  all  their  future 
earnings. 

16.  McClure's,  May,  103-5. 

17.  S.  &  H.    (1881),  Vol.  II,  34. 

18.  McClure's,  May,  109. 

19.  In  Human  Life,  Sept.,  p.  14,  Mrs.  Eddy's  explana- 
tion is  given  of  her  break  with  Mr.  Spofford.  She  puts  it 
on  the  ground  of  his  business  incompetency  and  his  de- 
sire to  wrest  from  her  the  C.  S.  leadership. 

20-22.  Mrs.  Eddy  sometimes  gives  an  uncommon  or 
unwarranted  import  to  ordinary  words.  See  McClure's, 
July,  343,  for  instances  of  confusion  of  "  immorality"  and 
"disloyalty,"  "adultery"  and  "adulteration."  All 
through  the  various  editions  of  S.  &  H.,  she  frequently 
confuses  "  personality  "  and  "  corporeality  "  and  sets  up 
an  antagonism  between  "personality"  and  "principle" 
as  unnecessary  as  it  is  hurtful  to  her  metaphysics.  See 
McClure's,  July,  for  full  account  of  the  witchcraft  case; 
also  McClure's,  August;  and  Human  Life,  Sept. 

23.  R.  &  I.,  60.  One  of  several  who  knew  Mr.  Eddy 
and  have  given  me  their  recollections  of  him  informs  me 
that  Mr.  Eddy  seemed  to  him  slow  and  over-cautious, 
rather  than  naturally  dull  or  stupid.  He  thought  him 
completely  overawed  and  benumbed  by  his  wife's 
stronger  nature.     Dr.  Patterson  died  in  1896. 

24,  25.  McClure's,  May,  115,  116.  The  italics  are  Mrs. 
Eddy's. 

26.  The  post-mortem  examination  of  Mr.  Eddy  made 
at  Mrs.  Eddy's  request  by  a  reputable  physician  disclosed 
"organic  disease  of  the  heart,  the  aortic  valve  being  de- 


Notes  235 

stroyed  and  the  surrounding  tissue  infiltrated  with  cal- 
careous matter."  To  satisfy  Mrs.  Eddy  the  physician 
showed  her  the  heart,  and  yet  she  still  insisted  that  her 
husband  had  died  of  "  malicious  mesmerism  "  or  "  arseni- 
cal poisoning  mentally  administered." — McClure's,  Sept., 
568  ff.     See  also  R.  &  I.,  60. 

27.  McCbire's,  Sept.,  572-5;  Human  Life,  Jan.;  C.  S. 
Sentinel,  May  23,  Aug.  24;  Philadelphia  North  American, 
July  15. 

According  to  McClure's,  Sept.,  Calvin  A.  Frye  was  born 
Oct.  24,  1845,  in  Frye  village,  now  a  part  of  Andover, 
Mass.,  of  good  New  England  ancestry.  His  father,  Enoch 
Frye,  was  graduated  from  Harvard  in  the  famous  class 
of  1821,  which  numbered  Emerson  among  its  brightest 
stars.  After  attending  public  school  in  Andover  he 
worked  in  a  machine  shop  till  in  1882  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
seven  in  response  to  a  telegram  he  entered  Mrs.  Eddy's 
service,  in  which  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  he  has  been 
engaged,  it  is  said,  without  vacation.  He  has  at  times 
done  her  marketing;  kept  her  books  with  honesty  she  tes- 
tifies, and  the  recent  auditor  of  his  accounts  reports; 
written  many  of  her  letters,  and,  dignified  New  Eng- 
lander  as  he  is,  these  many  years  clad  in  livery  he  has 
sat  upon  the  coachman's  box  when  she  has  gone  out  for 
her  daily  drive.  He  has  been  faithfulness  itself  to  her 
and  to  her  interests  because  according  to  his  aflfidavit  he 
has  steadily  believed  both  in  her  and  in  her  theory.  In  an 
anomalous  position,  under  frequent  criticism  and  not  in- 
frequent ridicule,  he  has  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  hid 
behind  an  impassive  countenance  and  an  unbroken  si- 
lence, his  motives,  feelings,  and  experiences. 

28.  R.  &  I.,  62;  McClure's,  Aug. 

29.  Robinson,  13.  The  references  in  the  preceding 
paragraph  are  to  McClure's,  Sept.,  581. 

Not  all  who  heard  Mrs.  Eddy  in  those  days  were  im- 
pressed alike.  Miss  Frances  J.  Dyer,  trained  journalist, 
frequently  attended  C.  S.  services  in  the  early  eighties 
and  has  kindly  revived  for  the  writer's  use  the  following 
recollections  written  at  the  time: 

Among    the    novel    Sabbath    services    in    this    city    of 


236  Notes 

heterodoxy  is  the  gospel  according  to  Mrs.  Mary  B.  G. 
Eddy,  the  chief  apostle  and  expounder  of  "  Christian 
Science,"  so  called.  In  Hawthorne  Hall,  at  three 
o'clock  on  Sunday  afternoons,  an  audience  of  some  200 
intelligent  and  respectable  looking  people  assemble  to  listen 
to  their  "  pastor."  The  exercises  begin  with  singing  a 
hymn.  Then  follows  a  moment  of  silent  prayer,  and  a 
most  remarkable  paraphrasing  of  the  Lord's  Prayer. 
After  each  petition  by  the  audience  Mrs.  Eddy  interjects 
one  of  her  own.  For  example,  after  the  people  say,  "  Thy 
will  be  done,"  she  adds,  "  May  the  supremacy  of  spirit 
appear,  and  the  dream  of  matter  disappear."  "  Lead  us 
not  into  temptation  "  is  followed  by  "  Deliver  us  from  the 
errors  of  personal  sense."  The  sermon  on  the  last  Sab- 
bath chanced  to  be  an  exposition  of  the  fourteenth  of 
John.  The  first  two  verses  were  read,  and  questions 
asked :  "  What  is  meant  by  the  heart  physically  and  meta- 
physically? "  Timid  voices  replied,  "  A  bodily  organ " 
and  "  The  seat  of  the  affections."  After  a  little  prelimi- 
nary skirmishing  of  this  sort,  the  speaker  plunged  boldly 
in  medias  res  as  set  forth  in  a  written  manuscript,  and 
elucidated  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  by  stating  that 
"  man  and  God  are  co-existent  and  eternal ;  losing  our 
sense  of  this,  we  gain  our  mortal  sense,  and  thus  become 
sinners."  If  we  listen  to  the  realities  of  sin  as  preached 
from  modern  pulpits  we  are  hell.  This  is  metaphysics. 
When  all  our  sense  of  being  goes  into  the  spiritual,  then 
only  do  we  begin  to  live.  Our  only  intelligence  and  sub- 
stance is  an  apprehension  of  the  great  and  eternal  some- 
thingness.  Jesus,  the  great  metaphysician,  whose  mission 
is  to  turn  away  our  thought  from  a  personal  Satan  and 
a  personal  sinner,  is  simply  the  idea  of  the  divine  in- 
telligence which  we  call  God,  or  good.  Christ  always  em- 
ployed mental  methods  for  bodily  healing.  We  are  what 
we  think  we  are,  and  our  attitude  of  thought  determines 
our  bodily  condition.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  matter — ■ 
all  in  the  universe  is  spirit.  And  so  on,  ad  absurdam. 
Meetings  have  just  been  suspended,  however,  owing  to  a 
''  pressure   of   other   duties." 

The   fountain   head   whence   these   amazing   sophistries 


Notes  237 

are  promulgated  is  the  Metaphysical  College,  a  chartered 
institution  at  571  Columbus  Avenue,  and  students  flock 
there  by  the  score,  even  at  the  exorbitant  charge  of  $300 
for  twelve  lessons.  Here  may  be  found  several  other 
resident  "  physicians "  and  elsewhere  in  the  city  are  a 
dozen  others,  most  of  the  practitioners  being  women.  A 
Journal  of  Christian  Science  is  published  every  other 
month.  Some  of  the  printed  testimonials  therein  to  Mrs. 
Eddy's  book.  Science  and  Health,  with  Key  to  the  Scrip- 
tures, give  somewhat  doubtful  praise.  Witness,  for  in- 
stance, this  one  from  Longfellow: 

"  Having  so  many  occupations  and  interruptions,  I  have 
not  found  time  to  read  Science  and  Health  sufficiently, 
but  will  not  on  that  account  delay  thanking  you  for  its 
excellence." 

30.  McClure's,  Sept.,  575;  May,  1899. 

31.  Arena,  May,  1899. 

32.  See  statement  of  "  next  friends  "  in  lawsuit. 

33.  34.  R.  &  I.,  67;  M.  W.,  271-274;  R.  &  L,  67-72; 
Hanna,  40;  Clark,  115. 

35.  P.  &  P.;  Peabody,  40;  M.  W.,  140. 

36.  M.  W.,  139-143,  156;  also  private  letter  of  June 
30,  1890. 

Christian  Science  architecture  is  distinctive.  Calm  and 
dignity,  beauty  and  harmony  are  the  ideals  it  endeavours 
to  embody.  Of  Gothic,  Christian  Scientists  will  have  no- 
thing because  Gothic  is  too  closely  associated  with  historic 
Christianity.  They  go  back  to  Athens  and  the  Acropolis 
not  only  because — to   quote   the   architect  of   the   Boston 

Church it  is  "  based  on  a  mathematical  inerrancy  which 

is  most  fascinating  to  analyse  "  but  also  because  "  the  pur- 
est type  of  the  ancient  Greek  temples  was  the  outgrowth 
of  a  naturalistic  and  rationalistic  religion." — S.  S.  Beman 
in  The  World  To-day,  June,  582-590. 

37.  There  are  many  likenesses  between  Mrs.  Eddy  and 
Mahomet  in  temperament,  character,  and  career.  See 
Stanley  Lane-Poole,  V-LV  for  analysis  of  Mahomet. 

38.  Letter  from  the  Committee  on  Publication,  dated 
June  20. 

39.  The    Committee   adds   that   "the   most    significant 


238  Notes 

item  bearing  on  this  point  is  the  fact  that  there  are 
nearly  450,000  copies  of  Science  and  Health  in  use.  If 
there  are  two  copies  in  the  average  family  of  five  this 
would  mean  more  than  a  million  persons  studying  the 
book." 

Apparently,  however,  the  Committee  has  for  the  mo- 
ment forgotten  that  according  to  the  C.  S.  Q.  Bible  Les- 
sons no  copy  of  Science  and  Health  before  the  226th 
edition  can  be  used  in  following  the  Sunday  services,  and 
that  there  is  for  this  reason  and  other  reasons,  constant 
encouragement  given  to  Christian  Scientists  to  buy  new 
editions.  The  latest  edition,  published  in  September,  con- 
taining a  portrait — made  many  years  ago — of  Mrs. 
Eddy,  is  so  alluringly  advertised  that  every  Christian 
Scientist  will  want  to  buy  a  copy.  A  Christian  Scientist 
near  Mrs.  Eddy  has  in  fact  stoutly  asserted  to  me  that 
no  one  should  read  any  but  the  latest  editions.  A  con- 
siderable number  of  copies  must  be  also  in  the  libraries, 
and  some  at  least  in  the  hands  of  those  whose  only  in- 
terest is  curious  or  critical. 

40.  For  illustrations  see  McClure's  for  the  current 
year  and  the  C.  S.  Sentinel,  July  27,  p.  910.  Note  also: 
"At  the  written  request  of  the  Pastor  Emeritus,  Mrs.  Eddy, 
the  Board  of  Directors  shall  immediately  notify  a  member 
of  this  Church  to  go  in  ten  days  to  her,  and  it  shall  be 
the  duty  of  the  member  thus  notified  to  remain  with  Mrs. 
Eddy  twelve  months  consecutively  or  three  years  con- 
secutively if  Mrs.  Eddy  requires  or  requests  it.  A  mem- 
ber who  leaves  her  in  less  time  without  her  consent  or 
who  is  discharged,  shall  be  dropped  from  the  Church. 
Male  members  who  remain  with  her  three  years  consecu- 
tively, shall  be  paid  semi-annually  at  the  rate  of  twelve 
hundred  dollars  yearly  in  addition  to  rent  and  board. 
Female  members  shall  receive  one  thousand  dollars  an- 
nually with  rent  and  board.  Those  members,  whom  sh« 
teaches  the  course  in  Divinity,  and  those  who  remain  with 
her  three  years,  receive  the  degrees  of  the  Massachusetts 
Metaphysical   College." — Manual,  66, 

41.  Manual,  18,  3. 

42.  Mark  Twain,  209, 


Notes  239 


43.  William  P.  Trent. 

44.  Alfred    Farlow. 

45.  C.  S.  Sentinel,  July  6,  852. 

46.  Boston  Herald,  Aug.   17. 

47.  Human  Life,  July. 

48.  The  case  in  question  was  that  of  the  Aherthaw 
Construction  Co.  vs.  Carpenters  District  Council  of  Boston 
and  Vici7iity  and  the  Christian  Science  Church  (Owners). 
The  case  was  first  referred  to  a  "  Master,"  Hon.  Wade 
Keyes;  and  when  objections  and  exceptions  to  his  report 
were  filed  by  the  Christian  Science  Board  of  Directors, 
his  decision  after  full  argument  was  "  unanimously  sus- 
tained by  the  Court  of  Last  Resort  of  the  Commonwealth 
of  Massachusetts,"  March  27,  1907.  The  report  of  much 
of  the  evidence  and  the  court  decision  have  been  printed 
for  distribution  by  the  Master  Builders  Association  of 
Boston  in  a  pamphlet,  loaned  the  author  by  Mr.  W.  L. 
Cook  and  closing  with  the  following  words :  "  The 
amount  of  money  involved  in  this  case  was  insignifi- 
cant, but  the  principle  was  great,  and  the  decision  ren- 
dered is  so  important  and  far-reaching  that  all  parties 
concerned  in  industrial  issues  should  take  note  thereof." 
See  also  editorial  in  the  Springfield  Republican,  June  20. 
McClure's,  August,  gives  other  instances  of  litigation  in 
which  Mrs.  Eddy  has  been  involved  from  time  to  time. 
The  explanation  in  Human  Life,  Sept.,  that  others  have 
been  in  every  case  at  fault  is  not  convincing. 

49.  Private  letter  dated  Dec.  18,  1890.  See  McClure's, 
Oct.,  688,  for  instance  in  which  Mrs.  Eddy  claims  "  divine 
origin "  and,  692,  for  instance  in  which  Mrs.  Eddy  ad- 
mits to  the  Journal,  May,  1885,  while  she  was  actual 
editor,  the  following  claim  a  disciple  makes  for  her: 
"  She  existed  from  the  beginning  before  all  ages,  and  will 
not   cease   to   exist   throughout   all   ages." 

50.  Notes  to   Chapter  II,  2. 

51.  McClure's,    Sept. 

52.  New  York  American,  Aug.  26. 

53.  Punch's  phrase  applied  without  disparagement  to 
Mr.  Gladstone  as  it  is  here  to  Mrs.  Eddy. 


240  Notes 

CHAPTER  V 

1.  S.  &  H.  (1898),  464;  Sturge,  14,  15;  Karl  Pear- 
son's Ethic  of  Free  Thought;  J.  R.  Mosley  in  Cosmopoli- 
tan, July,  331. 

2.  S.  &  H.    (1898),  481. 

3.  Cosmopolitan,  July,  333. 

4.  A   Critic  Answered,  13  ff. 

5.  Peabody,  29;  McClure's,  Aug.,  457. 

6.  Canon  Scott  Holland  in  Sturge,  XVIII. 

7.  The  successive  editions  of  S.  &  H.  were  numbered 
until  the  440th  appeared  a  few  months  ago.  The  num- 
bering was  then  discontinued. 

8.  Lodge,   VI. 

9.  A  Critic  Answered,  16.  To  understand  the  unwar- 
ranted appropriation  made  by  C.  S.  of  the  word  "  reality  " 
to  a  special  meaning,  see  James's  Pragmatism,  212,  244. 

10.  S.  &  H.  (1898),  110,  170,  189,  484.  Since  writing 
the  paragraph  to  which  this  refers  the  author  has  found 
a  full  description  of  Soul  Senses  in  a  Quimby  manuscript 
dated  May,  1860. 

11.  Frothingham,  122-127. 

12.  H.  W.  Dresser,  97-100. 

13.  Collect  for  first  Sunday  in  Lent. 

14.  Peabody,  34.     This  was  verified  by  personal  letter. 

15.  S.  &  H.,  331. 

16.  Newman's   Apologia,    144. 

17.  A  Critic  Answered,  14. 

18.  S.  &  H.    (1898),  129. 

19.  S.  &  H.,  172. 

It  is  profitable  to  compare  Mrs.  Eddy's  crude  view  with 
the  concept  of  a  trained  scientist  like  Sir  Oliver  Lodge: 
"  The  popular  misconception  concerning  the  biological 
origin  of  man,  that  he  is  descended  from  monkeys  like 
those  of  the  present  day,  is  a  trivial  garbling  of  the  truth. 
The  elevated  and  the  degraded  branches  of  a  family  can 
both  trace  their  descent  from  a  parent  stock;  and  though 
the  distant  common  ancestor  may  now  be  lost  in  obscurity, 
there  is  certainly  in  this  sense  a  blood  relationship  be- 
tween  the   quadrumana   and   the  bimana:    a   relationship 


Notes  241 

which  is  recognised  and  is  practically  useful  in  the  in- 
vestigations of  experimental  pathology." — The  Substance 
of  Faith,  17. 

20.  Christian  Science:  Humanity's  Helper,  17.  The 
verse  which  appears  immediately  before  the  quotation  of 
Professor  Hering's  is  from  a  poem  by  Professor  W.  H. 
Car  ruth. 

21.  Compare  with  Mrs.  Ward's  noble  words  in  David 
Grieve,  402,  the  following  doggerel  Mrs.  Eddy  offers  in 
protest  against  evolution: 

"  Thenceforth  to  evolution's 
Geology,  we  say, — 
Nothing  have  we  gained  therefrom, 
And  nothing  have  to  pray." — M.  W.,  V. 

22.  Cushman,  58,  confirms  the  writer's  thesis  in  his 
forceful  phrase  definitive  of  C.  S. :  "  It  is  theoretical 
moral  anarchism."  It  has  also  been  admitted  by  a  promi- 
nent official  of  the  Church  that  C.  S.  is  "  essentially  in- 
dividualistic "  in  opposition  to  the  socialistic  tendencies  of 
the  time.     See  Huwcan  Life,  January  4. 

23.  S.  &  H.    (1898),  223. 

24.  S.  &  H.    (1875),  Ch.  I. 

25.  Hutchinson,  32. 

26.  Wright,  18,  19.     Also  Ch.  IV,  note  26. 

27.  S.  &  H.   (1875),  Ch.  I. 

28.  S.  &  H.    (1898),  290. 

29.  Cambridge  Chronicle,  Nov.  3,  1906. 

30.  S.  &  H.  (1898),  316. 

31.  S.  &  H.,  140. 

32.  S.  &  H.,  142. 

33.  S.  &  H.   (1898),  21. 

34.  S.   &   H.,   126. 

35.  S.  &  H.,  141. 

36.  Prayer  Book,  38. 

CHAPTER  yi 

1.  S.  &  H.    (1898),  461. 

2.  S.  &  H.   (1881),  I,  167;  II,  97. 

3.  Northampton  Herald,  Oct.  16,  1905. 

4.  C.  S.  V.  P.,  5,  12. 


242  Notes 

5.  S.  &  H.   (1898),  7. 

6.  S.  &  H.  (1888),  50. 

7.  Hutchinson,  16. 

8.  Cosmopolitan,  July.  It  is  gratifying  to  find  Mr. 
Farnsworth  {Arena,  July,  p.  59)  thus  confirming  the 
writer's  view  of  the  tendency  of  C.  S.  to  turn  to  dual- 
ism :  "  Christian  Science  .  .  .  drops  upon  investigation 
into  a  dualism  because  its  utter  inability  to  account  for 
mortal  mind  and  that  error  of  mortal  mind  the  inhar- 
monious, phenomenal  world  of  sense,  argues  the  exist- 
ence of  an  evil  principle  at  war  with  God." 

9.  Living  Church,  July  6,  339.  A  writer  in  the  C.  S. 
Sentinel,  Sept.  21,  p.  57,  apparently  does  not  endorse  Mr. 
Farlow's  explanation.  She  writes :  "  Principle  and  not 
personality  is  the  only  foundation  upon  which  we  can 
build  safely." 

10.  The  italics  are  the  writer's. 

11.  Letter   dated   May  31. 

12.  S.  &  H.,  6. 

13.  S.  &  H.,  XI. 

14.  S.  &  H.,  331.  The  more  specific  statement  ap- 
pears in  S.  &  H.,  55 :  "  In  the  words  of  St.  John,  *  He 
shall  give  you  another  comforter,  that  he  may  abide  with 
you  forever.'  This  Comforter  I  understand  to  be  Divine 
Science." 

15.  Fluno,  23.  Throughout  a  paragraph  C.  S.  is 
identified  with  the  Holy  Spirit. 

16.  S.  &  H.  (1898),  469:  See  also  M.  W.,  63. 

17.  H.  W.  Dresser,  109,  94.  In  the  Quimby  manu- 
script dated  May,  1860,  there  is  also  a  clear  statement  of 
the  case. 

18.  Quimby  Scrapbook. 

19-21.  S.  &  H.  (1898),  1,  532,  229.  Farnsworth  in 
Arena,  July,  60. 

22.  C.  S.  Sentinel,  June  15,  1899,  6. 

23.  The  note  is  dated  Dec.  22,  1906,  and  appeared  in 
the  C.  S.  Sentinel. 

24.  S.  &  H.   (1898),  513. 

25.  S.  &  H.  (1898),  550-7.  The  italics  are  the 
writer's. 


f 


Notes  243 

26.  Searchlights,  45.  Mrs.  Eddy  once  at  least  calls 
Jesus  the  "  Way-shower."     See  M.  W.,  30. 

27.  R.  &  I.,  95. 

28.  S.  &  H.,  569. 

29-31.     Mark    Twain,    334-8;    Manual,    63. 

32.  McClure's,  March,  507. 

33.  McClure's,  July,  337. 

34.  Peabody,  26. 

35.  Manual,  94,  reads :  "  If  the  author  of  the  Christian 
Science  text-book  call  on  this  Board  for  household  help 
or  a  handmaid,  the  Board  shall  immediately  appoint  a 
proper  member  of  this  Church  therefor,  and  the  appointee 
shall  go  immediately  in  obedience  to  the  call.  "  He  that . 
loveth  father  or  mother  more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of 
me."     (Matt.  10:37). 

36.  M.  W.,  309. 

37.  S.  &  H.   (1875). 

38.  Lodge,  125. 

39.  S.  &  H.,  15.  Mrs.  Eddy's  entire  theory  of  prayer, 
even  to  her  warning  against  audible  prayer,  will  be  found 
substantially  in  Quimby's  language  in  the  Quimby  manu- 
script  dated    March,    1860. 

40.  Cambridge   Chronicle,  Nov.  3,  1906. 

41.  S.  &  H.,  16. 

42.  Lodge,  129. 

43.  Mt.  28:29;  I  Cor.  11:23-25. 

44.  S.  &  H.,  32. 

45.  S.  &  H.,  35;  Arena,  May,  1899,  564. 

46.  S.  &  H.   (1888),  504. 

47.  S.  &  H.,  35. 

48.  S.  &  H.,  34.  For  a  scientific  statement  of  the 
necessary  sacramental  relationship  of  mind  and  matter, 
see   Thomson,   Chs.   II.   and   VIII. 

49.  Cushman,  35;  S.  &  H.   (1898),  468. 

50.  A  Critic  Ansiuered,  19.  In  the  Quimby  manu- 
script dated  July,  1860,  the  statement  is  made  that  God 
did  not  create  evil. 

51.  Browning's  Abt  Vogler. 

52.  Campbell's   New    Theology,   52. 

53.  S.  &  H.    (1898),  7. 


244  Notes 

54.  Isaiah   45:7;    Genesis    1:31    and   1:18. 

55.  S.  &  H.  (1898),  Index  on  Sin. 

56.  Rev.  C.  E.  Holmes,  Ph.D. 

57.  Professor  Cushman  (58)  sums  np  the  tendency  of 
Christian  Science  to  confuse  moral  distinctions  in  this 
way:  "To  deny  the  existence  of  sin  is  to  deny  the  exist- 
ence of  virtue;  and  to  disallow  disease  is  to  disallow 
health.  There  cannot  be  good  without  ill,  virtue  without 
sin,  health  without  disease,  knowledge  without  ignorance, 
heat  without  cold,  white  without  black.  These  are  cor- 
relative terms.  They  are  as  mutually  necessary  as  one 
pole  of  a  magnet  is  to  the  other.  To  deny  sin  and  dis- 
ease is  to  deny  all  moral  distinctions  whatsoever,  and 
upon  moral  distinctions  is  society  built." 

Professor  Barrett  Wendell  in  his  France  of  To-day 
(177)  notes  the  same  tendency  to  deny  facts  and  thus 
to  confuse  moral  distinctions  among  Christian  Scientists 
in  his  treatment  of  the  Dreyfus  case. 

The  writer  knows  a  clear-headed  woman  who  declined 
to  become  a  student  of  C.  S.  because  she  was  required  at 
the  beginning  to  endeavour  to  persuade  herself  that  black 
is  white. 

58.  S.  &  H.  (1898),  38,  443,  486,  588,  589. 

59.  Human  Life,  July. 

60.  S.  &  H.    (1898),  639-641;    (1888),  515. 

61.  Alfred  Farlow  in  the  Boston  Post,  July  2;  S.  & 
H.  (1875). 

62.  McClure's,  May,  116. 

63.  Omaha  Daily  News,  January  7  and  8,  1901. 

64.  The  paragraphs  above  were  written  before  Mrs. 
Eddy's  disavowal,  Aug.  14,  of  belief  in  the  power  of  one 
mind  to  work  ill  to  another  and  before  Dr.  Allan  McLane 
Hamilton,  going  far  beyond  the  province  of  an  alienist, 
declared  that  "  the  allegations  concerning  Mrs.  Eddy's  be- 
lief in  'malicious  animal  magnetism'  are  ridiculous."  I 
am  allowing  the  paragraphs,  however,  to  stand  in  proof 
because  the  evidences  presented  in  S.  &  H.  (especially  the 
third  edition),  in  certain  personal  letters  of  Mrs.  Eddy 
with  which  Dr.  Hamilton  cannot  have  been  familiar, 
and  in  the  conversations  and  correspondence  I  have  had 


Notes  245 

— and  Dr.  Hamilton  has  not — with  those  who  have  known 
her  during  a  considerable  period  of  her  career  leave  no 
room  to  doubt  the  large  and  lurid  place  "  M.  A.  M."  has 
had  both  in  her  outward  and  her  inner  life.  If  she  no 
longer  believes  in  it,  Mrs.  Eddy  deserves  to  be  congratu- 
lated on  her  escape,  though  late,  from  the  thraldom  of 
an  actual  obsession.  But  that  in  no  wise  alters  the 
evidences  of  the  past.  See  also  McClure's,  May  to  Oc- 
tober, and  Boston  Herald,  Aug.  17,  in  which  appear  sev- 
eral significant  letters. 

CHAPTER  VII 

1.  Hudson,  7,   8. 

2.  S.  &  H.,  107,  120.  In  the  "  Masters  "  interview  of 
Aug.  14th  Mrs.  Eddy  said  in  explanation  of  her  healing 
system :  "  When  I  came  to  the  point  that  it  was  mind  that 
did  the  healing,  then  I  wanted  to  know  what  mind  that 
was.  Was  it  the  mind  which  was  in  Jesus  Christ,  or  was 
it  the  human  mind  and  human  will?  Then  I  went  to  in- 
vestigating spiritualism  and  mesmerism  and  hypnotism, 
to  see  if  I  could  find  out,  and  I  didn't  find  God  there; 
therefore  I  turned  to  God  in  prayer  and  said :  "  Guide  me, 
guide  me  to  that  mind  which  is  in  Christ,"  and  I  took  the 
Bible  and  opened  it  at  the  words,  "  Now  go  write  it  in  a 
book."  I  can  show  you  where  it  is  in  the  Bible.  I  then 
commenced  writing  my  consciousness  of  what  I  had  seen, 
and  I  found  that  human  will  was  the  cause  of  disease 
instead  of  its  cure;  that  hypnotism  and  mesmerism  or  hu- 
man concepts  did  not  heal — they  were  the  origin  of  dis- 
ease instead  of  its  cure;  and  that  the  divine  mind  was  the 
healer,  and  then  I  found  it  through  the  Scripture.  "  He 
healed  all  our  diseases.  Go  into  the  field,  preach  the 
Gospel,  heal  the  sick,"  and  I  felt  there  was  my  line  of 
labour,  and  that  God  did  the  healing,  and  I  could  no  more 
heal  a  person  through  mortal  mind  or  will  power  than  I 
could  heal  then  by  cutting  off  their  heads,  and  I  could 
not  heal  them  by  it,  for  I  don't  know  how  to  use  will 
power  to  hurt  the  sick;  I  don't  know  how  to  do  it." — Bos- 
ton Herald,  Aug.  15. 


246  Notes 

3.  S.  &  H.,  149;  (1898),  426;  Oughton,  98;  Alfred 
Farlow  in  the  Boston  Herald,  July  18.  I  give  Mr.  Far- 
low's  report  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  statement  as  she  recalls  it  as 
to  stopping  the  bleeding  of  her  arm.  Dr.  Edward  Everett 
Hale,  to  whom  she  made  the  statement,  wrote  me  Sept. 
27 :  "  Mrs.  Eddy  said  to  me  that  I  might  cut  through  the 
main  artery  of  her  arm  and  that  she  would  stop  the 
effusion  of  blood  by  an  exertion  of  will." 

4.  S.  &  H.  (1898),  422,  423,  47,  217,  374,  375,  385,421, 
485. 

5.  Snyder,  11;  C.  S.  Legislation,  18;  Broadway  Mag- 
azine, May,  163;  Casson,  35. 

6.  Muldoon,  30.  Mrs.  Eddy  admitted  over  her  own 
signature  in  the  Boston  Herald,  Dec.  2,  1900,  that  she 
allowed  a  dentist  to  use  his  painless  method  in  the  extrac- 
tion of  her  tooth. 

7.  Muldoon,  31.  For  an  important  correction  of  Mrs. 
Eddy's  reference  to  Berkeley,  see  James's  Pragmatism, 
89. 

8.  S.  &  H.,  179.  Absent  treatment  was  an  implication 
of  Quimby's  healing  theory  which  especially  appealed  to 
Mrs.  Eddy.  After  she  left  him  in  the  autumn  of  1862  she 
was,  as  I  found  in  her  letters  to  him,  ever  visualising  him. 
Once  she  wrote  that  she  had  actually  seen  him  spiritually 
present.  Again,  she  besought  him  to  visit  her  in  his 
"  omnipresence."  Once  she  wrote  of  him  as  "  Comfor- 
ter "  and  of  his  "  angel  visit "  to  her.  She  developed  a 
truth  he  taught  her  but  it  was  none  the  less  a  truth  of  his 
discovering. 

9.  S.  &  H.,  177,  178. 

10.  S.  &  H.  (1888),  451;  S.  &  H.,  401. 

11.  Government,   4. 

12.  S.  &  H.,  X. 

13.  Osier,  382. 

14.  Dr.  Huber  confirms  my  references  to  him  and  in  a 
letter,  dated  Aug.  22,  adds  that  he  found  the  C.  S.  claims 
in  the  instances  cited  to  be  "  pitifully  without  foundation." 

15.  Goddard,  433-7. 

16.  S.  &  H.,  VIII;    (1898),  290. 

17.  Oughton,  85;  Casson,  180. 


Notes  247 

Mrs.  Eddy  says:  "Sickness  has  been  fought  for 
centuries  by  doctors  using  material  remedies;  but  the 
question  arises,  Is  there  less  sickness  because  of  these 
practitioners?  A  vigorous  *  No  '  is  the  response  deducible 
from  two  connate  facts, — the  reputed  longevity  of  the 
Antediluvians,  and  the  rapid  multiplication  and  increased 
violence  of  diseases  since  the  flood." — S.  &  H.,  VIII. 

Mrs.  Eddy  often  betrays  her  unfamiliarity  with  history, 
archseology,  geology,  and  Biblical  criticism  as  in  the  above 
passage.     But  one  would  not  press  a  tactical  advantage. 

It  is  difficult,  however,  to  withhold  comment  from  the 
following  sentence:  "The  census  since  1875  (the  date  of 
the  first  publication  of  my  work,  Science  and  Health) 
shows  that  longevity  has  increased." — M.  W.,  20. 

18.  Seaman  and  Suzuki  in  Review  of  Reviews,  Nov. 
1905. 

19.  Keen,  217-261. 

20.  S.  &  H.   (1898),  214,  622,  381,  382,  387,  388,  411. 

21.  Oughton,  83. 

22.  S.  &  H.,  111. 

23.  Osier,  302.  It  would  seem  pertinent  also  to  in- 
quire whether  C.  S.  can  cure  pleurisy,  since  in  the  recent 
lawsuit  it  was  admitted,  Aug.  8,  that  Joseph  Armstrong, 
Mrs.  Eddy's  publisher  and  conspicuous  supporter,  was  un- 
der treatment  for  pleurisy  by  a  regular  physician.  Says 
the  Boston  Herald,  Aug.  9,  in  editorial  comment:  "The 
turning  of  publisher  Armstrong  of  the  Christian  Science 
coterie  of  officials  to  a  physician  for  treatment  for  pleu- 
risy is  as  if  John  had  been  like  Judas,  as  if  Melancthon 
had  left  Luther  to  serve  Leo  X,  as  if  John  Knox  had 
fallen  under  the  spell  of  Queen  Mary's  blandishments  and 
turned  Roman  Catholic,  as  if  Asbury  and  Coke  on  arriv- 
ing in  America  had  preached  Calvinism,  and  as  if  a 
speaker  at  Northfield  should  preach  agnosticism." 

24.  S.  &  H.,  X. 

25.  S.  &  H.  (1898),  367,  378,  383,  416,  485.  The  arti- 
cle on  C.  S.  cures  in  the  Broadway  Magazine  for  Novem- 
ber seems  to  the  author  negligible  in  the  light  of  the  tests 
he  speaks  of  in  the  preceding  paragraphs  and  to  which 
the  alleged  cures  have  not  been  subjected. 


248  Notes 

26.     S.  &  H.,  110;   (1898),  42,  368,  369. 

27-30.     S.  &  H.,  515,  396,  399,  411,  412,  421. 

"  Chemicalisation  "  is  coin  strange  enough  to  come  from 
Mrs.  Eddy's  mint.  But  George  A.  Quimby  incidentally 
remarked,  July  16,  to  the  writer  that  his  father  was  con- 
stantly speaking  of  the  "  chemical  change "  which  his 
ideas  produced  in  patients.  "  He  never  sat  down  by  a 
patient,"  said  his  son,  "  but  he  used  this  phrase.     Never!  '* 

The  writer  has  also  found  the  phrase  "  chemical  change  " 
in  the  Quimby  MSS.  dated  March,  April,  and  October, 
1860, — two  years  before  Mrs.  Eddy's  first  visit  to  Quimby. 

31.  S.  &  H.,  427,  428. 

32.  Hutchinson,  17. 

33.  S.  &  H.    (1898),  343,  358. 

34.  Heber  Newton,  in  Mark  Twain,  322-7;  Schofield, 
Ch.  II;  Huxley,  84-96;  Zola's  Lourdes;  Oughton,  26-32. 

35.  Goddard,   442-5. 

36.  Goddard,  472. 

37.  Goddard,  473;   Moll,  889;   Bramwell,   161   ff. 

38.  The  Emmanuel  Movement  was  started  and  is  to- 
day conducted  by  Rev.  Elwood  Worcester,  Ph.D.,  D.D., 
Rector  of  Emmanuel  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  Bos- 
ton, assisted  by  Rev.  Samuel  McComb,  D.D.  For  further 
account  of  the  Movement  see  The  Homiletic  Review,  Sept.; 
The  Open  Court,  Sept.;  The  New  York  Evening  Post, 
March  30;  The  Congregationalist,  April  6;  Good  House- 
keeping for  March,  April,  Oct.,  and  Nov.;  and  Harper's 
Bazaar,  October.  See  also  The  Christ  that  is  to  be,  215- 
274,  for  detailed  consideration  of  the  possibilities  and 
duties  of  the  Christian  church  in  healing  the  sick. 

The  author  does  not  discuss  the  possibility  of  the 
cure  of  organic  diseases  by  suggestion.  He  is  acquainted 
with  the  argument  for  it  in  Schofield's  Forces  of  Mind, 
164,  and  in  The  Christ  that  is  to  be,  215-225.  But  he  be- 
lieves it  is  too  early  to  determine  to  what  extent  sugges- 
tion is  applicable  beyond  the  range  of  nervous  and  func- 
tional disorders.  He  welcomes  experimentation  but 
thinks  it  ought  to  be  made  with  caution,  under  proper 
conditions,  and  that  scientific  tests  should  be  applied  be- 
fore  and   after.     The   methods   of   C.    S.,   especially  with 


Notes  249 


children,  seem  to  him  reprehensible  and  deserving  of  state 
regulation. 

39.  Goddard,  485. 

40.  Ch.  III.     Note  24. 

41.  Arthur  Hugh  Clough. 

CHAPTER  VIII 

1.  M.  W.,  52. 

2.  M.  W.,  288. 

3.  The  latest  concrete  instance  appeared  in  the  fol- 
lowing open  letter  in  the  Boston  Herald,  July  11: 

A    DIVIDED    FAMILY 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Herald: 

In  your  issue  of  July  5th,  you  published  a  letter  from 
Mr.  Alfred  Farlow  regarding  the  "  Case  of  Prof.  Hart." 
In  this  letter  Mr.  Farlow  says,  "  The  habit  of  charging 
one's  family  troubles  to  Christian  Science  or  some  other 
religion  has  become  about  as  common  nowadays  as  .  .  . 
when,  in  fact,  these  quarrels  are  due  to  a  want  of  Chris- 
tian Science,"  and  Mr.  Farlow  also  goes  on  to  say,  "  It 
seems  to  us  that  if  there  are  any  inviolable  rights,  whether 
they  concern  a  husband  or  a  wife,  it  is  the  individual 
choice  of  religion  and  medicine.  There  is  no  more  reason 
why  a  husband  should  dominate  the  religious  belief  of  a 
family  than  that  a  wife  should  regulate  it,  .  .  .  the  only 
just  and  perceptible  means  of  harmony  in  the  home  re- 
garding religious  beliefs  is  to  leave  each  member  in  the 
unmolested  entertainment  of  his  own  faith." 

I  agree  with  Mr.  Farlow  that  it  is  right  and  proper  to 
leave  the  husband  or  the  wife  to  the  unmolested  enter- 
tainment of  their  own  views,  but  how  about  a  family  of 
children  aged  from  8  to  16  years;  I  am  the  father  of 
such  a  family,  and  my  wife  became  interested  a  few  years 
ago  in  Christian  Science.  Now  during  all  our  married 
life  we  have  had  a  home  in  which  harmony  reigned,  our 
chief  desire  being  to  have  a  home  for  our  children  in  every 
sense  of  the  word,  my  wife  has  always  been  a  devout 
Christian  woman  and  a  good  mother,  and  I  am  old  fash- 


250  Notes 

ioned  enough  to  be  passionately  in  love  with  her,  there- 
fore when  she  became  interested  in  Christian  Science  I 
at  once  took  up  the  study  of  it  with  her,  attending  the 
church  and  lectures,  following  the  various  lessons,  etc., 
etc.,  with  the  result  that  my  wife  accepted  Christian  Sci- 
ence in  all  its  teachings  and  I  rejected  it,  while  admitting 
that  the  idea  back  of  it  (which  is  in  all  religions)  is  good. 
Then  the  first  inharmonious  note  appeared  in  our  home. 
I  do  not  desire  my  children  to  become  Christian  Scientists 
and  my  wife  does  desire  it  with  her  whole  heart.  Who 
is  to  give  way,  my  wife  or  myself? 

My  wife  has  had  so-called  "  claims  "  and  has  been  in 
practitioners'  hands,  to  whom  she  has  explained  my  posi- 
tion in  the  matter.  The  practitioner  failed  to  relieve  my 
wife  of  her  "  claims  "  after  "  treating "  her  for  a  time, 
and  then  declined  to  treat  her  further,  owing  to  her  hus- 
band's (the  writer's)  thought  being  so  much  opposed  to 
Christian  Science.  I  presume  this  opposing  thought  of 
mine  is  another  phase  of  malicious  animal  magnetism, 
which  (if  my  presumption  is  correct)  demonstrates  the 
fact  that  Christian  Science  is  not  all  powerful  to  protect 
from  every  evil,  i.  e.,  opposing  thoughts. 

Now,  it  looks  to  me  as  if  my  family  was  split  wide  open, 
and  the  split  getting  wider,  not  through  want  of  Christian 
Science,  by  any  means,  but  entirely  through  its  presence. 

Yours  truly, 

Brookline,  July  8,  1907.  J.  R.  D. 

4-9.  S.  &  H.  (1875),  Ch.  VI;  S.  &  H.,  64,  65;  M.  W., 
286;   S.  &  H.,  64. 

10.  St.  Luke  20:34;  St.  Matthew  22:30;  St.  Mark 
12:25.  See  Bruce  in  Expositor's  Greek  Testament  and 
Plummer  in  the  International  Critical  Commentary  on  St. 
Luke. 

11.  I  Thess.  4:16  ff. 

12.  "  We  do  not  question  the  authenticity  of  the  scrip- 
tural narrative  of  the  Virgin  Mother,  and  Bethlehem 
Babe,  and  the  Messianic  Mission  of  Christ  Jesus:  but  in 
our  time  no  Christian  Scientist  will  give  chimerical  wings 
to  his  imagination,  or  advance  speculative  theories  as  to 


Notes  251 

the  recurrence  of  such  events." — R.  &  I.,  95.  And  yet 
in  1906  we  find  Mrs.  Eddy  writing:  "  Gender  also  is  a 
quality,  a  characteristic  of  mortal  mind,  not  of  matter." 
— S.  &  H.,  305. 

13-19.  S.  &  H.  (1875),  122;  S.  &  H.  (1881),  II,  160; 
S.  &  H.  (1888),  152,  162;  S.  &  H.  (1898),  33,  541;  S.  &  H. 
(1906),  68,  69,  548.  This  reference  to  the  butterfly  and 
bee  is  omitted  from  the  edition  of  September,  1907,  but 
in  its  place  appears  a  statement  apparently  meaning  the 
same   thing. 

20.  Manual,  100. 

21.  The  writer  is  indebted  for  his  facts  about  the  Sun- 
day-school to  an  usher  of  the  Boston  Church  who  one 
Sunday  morning  kindly  acted  as  his  guide  through  the 
colossal   church   before   the   appointed   hour   of   service. 

22.  Richardson.  A  man  formerly  high  in  C.  S.  circles 
writes :  "  It  is  an  actual  fact  that  if  those  holding  promi- 
nent positions  in  the  church  and  are  fired  by  ambition  to 
rise  higher  in  executive  control  are  blessed  with  children, 
they  will  be  looked  upon  with  disfavour.  Such  domestic 
blessings  are  contrary  to  the  process  of  spiritual  refine- 
ment promulgated  by  the  pastor  emeritus.  That  ac- 
counts for  the  deploringly  low  birth  rate  among  Christian 
Scientists." 

See  also  Edward  C.  Farnsworth  and  John  B.  Willis 
in  the  Arena  for  July.  To  Mr.  Farnsworth's  charge  that 
the  goal  of  C.  S.  is  sexlessness,  which  Mrs.  Eddy's  sen- 
tence, "  Spirit  will  ultimately  claim  its  own,  all  that  really 
is,  and  the  voices  of  physical  sense  be  forever  hushed  " 
(S.  &  H.,  64)  clearly  confirms,  Mr.  Willis  feebly  cites  in 
refutal  various  passages  to  prove  that  "  virtue  consists 
not  in  abstaining  from  vice,  but  in  not  desiring  it," — 
which  is  not  the  point  at  issue,  which  is  in  fact  a  com- 
monplace of  Christian  ethics. 

No  one  can  read  Jane  Addams's  article  in  the  Ladies* 
Home  Journal,  September,  on  "  Why  Girls  Go  Wrong " 
without  perceiving  the  social  peril  lurking  in  Mrs.  Eddy's 
unsacramental  view  of  marriage. 

23.  M.   W.,  289. 

24.  Manual,  100. 


2  52  Notes 


25.  S.  &  H.   (1898),  336. 

26.  S.  &  H.   (1898),  162. 

27.  M.  W.,  151. 

28.  S.  &  H.   (1875) 

29.  S.  &  H.   (1898),  385. 

30.  C.  S.  Journal,  April,  p.  17. 

31.  See  Paul  Elmer  More  (8)  for  picture  of  the  perils 
of  abstract  affection. 

32.  Arthur  Hugh  Clough. 

33.  William  Rathbone  Greg,  quoted  in  Snyder,  16. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Dr.  Lyman,  19 

Abdera,  108 

Aberthaw  Construction  Co., 
238 

Absent  treatment,  246 

Adam,  and   mental  surgery, 
176 

Adams,  C.  F.,  5 

Adams,  Rev.  Wm.,  231 

Addams,  Jane,  251 

Advertiser,    the  Portland,  40 

Agamogenesis,  211 

Ambrose,  192 

Amesbury,  69 

Amram,  120 

Anarchy,  and  Christian  Sci- 
ence, 11,  130,134,  217,241 

Anaxagoras,  128 

Ancrum,  129 

Animal  magnetism,  see  Mag- 
netism. 

Animals,     Christian    Science 
healing  of,  174 

Anne,  Queen,  193 

Apostolic  age,  8,  10 

Arabian  Nights,  91 

Architecture,    Christian    Sci- 
ence, 237 

Arens,  E.  J.,  46,  80,  228 

Armstrong,  Joseph,  248 


Asceticism,  204 
Athanasius,  192 
Augustine,  192 
Austen,  Lady,  63,  64 

B 

Baker,  Albert,  52 

Baker,  Mark,  52,  53 

Baker,    Mary  A.  Morse,  52; 

see  Mrs.  Eddy. 
Banner  of  Light,  70 
Baptism,  Mrs.  Eddy  on,  159 
Baptists,  193 
Barker,  Dr.  L.  F.,  198 
Bede,  192 

Berkeley,  59,  109,  174 
Berne,  60,  196 
Bernheim,  60,  196 
Bible,      and      Science      and 

Health.,    Ch.    II;     P.    P. 

Quimby  and,  59;  on  evil, 

163 
Birth,  Virgin,  207 
"Black  Death,"  181 
Blumhardt,  Parson,  193 
Braid,  51 

Brain  diseases,  173 
Bramwell,  201 
Bright's  disease,  174 
Brookins,  Miss,  132,  157 
Brooks,  Phillips,  120 


253 


254 


INDEX 


Browning,  Robert,  163 
Bryce,  James,  87 
Buckley,  Dr.  J.  M.,  19 


Campbell,  R.  J.,  163 

Cancer,  172,  173,  177,  184 

Canterbury,  N.  H.,  51 

Carruth,  W.  H.,  126 

Catharine  of  Siena,  193 

Celibacy,  204 

Chalcedon,  Council  of,  143 

Charcot,  194 

Charlemagne,  192 

Charles  II.,  193 

Chase,  S.  P.,  72 

Chemicalisation,  189 

Childbirth,  and  hypnotism, 
197 

Chiniquy,  Parson,  193 

Choate,  Mrs.  Clara,  87 

Christ  and  Christmas,  153 

Christ,  Mrs.  Eddy's  concep- 
tion of,  143,  191;  see  also 
Jesus. 

Christian  Science,  see  Ta- 
ble of  Contents. 

Christian  Science  Associa- 
tion, 21,  86,  151 

Christian  Science  Journal,  88 

Christian  Science  Quarterly, 
88 

Christian  Science  Sentinel,  88 

Christian  Science  versus  Pan- 
theism, 137 

Christian  Scientists,  and 
Christians,  Ch.  I;  total 
number  of,  96 

Christians,  and  Christian 
Scientists,  Ch.  I 


Christianity,  apostolic,  Ch.  I; 

and  mental  healing,  197 
Chrysostom,  192 
Church,  apostolic,  and  men- 
tal healing,   192 
Church,   Mother,   in  Boston, 

3,  95,  96,  103,  211 
Church,    the,   and    Christian 

Science,  Ch.  I 
Civil  War,  58 
Clapp,  Mrs.  C.  I.,  69,  71 
Clarkson,  Judge,  168 
Clemens,  S.  L.,  14,  15,  19,  27, 

151 
Clough,    Arthur   Hugh,    202, 

216 
Comforter,  see   Holy    Ghost. 
Committee    on    Publication, 

99,  176,  222,  237;  see  also, 

Alfred  Farlow. 
Comtism,  77 
Concord,  Mrs.  Eddy  at,  74, 

94,  95,  98,  126 
Constantinople,    Council    of, 

143 
Consumption,  172 
Cosmopolitan,  The,  126 
Cowles,  Abram,  231 
Cowper,  63,  64 
Crafts,  H.  S.,  33,  69 
Crosby,  Mrs.   S.   G.,  VI,  30, 

34,  35,  46,  58,  105 
Gushing,  Dr.  A.  M.,  VI,  33, 

66-68 
Cushman,  H.  E.,  241,  244 
Cuthbert,  192 
Cyril,  192 

D 
Darwin,  125 
D'Aubign6,  193 


INDEX 


255 


Davis,  A.  J.,  51 

Davy,  Sir  Humphrey,  193 

Democritus  of  Abdera,  108 

Demonology,  Mrs.  Eddy's, 
166-168 

Dentistry,  174 

Devil,  Mrs.  Eddy's,  166-8 

Diabetes,  185 

Diagnosis,  176,  197 

Dickens,  Charles,  70 

Dionysius,  163 

Diphtheria,  172,  181 

Disease,  and  Christian  Sci- 
ence, 172 

Divorce,  204 

Dixon,  Frederick,  229 

Doctors,  Mrs.  Eddy  on  the, 
131 

Dods,  J.  B.,  51 

Dowie,  194 

Dresser,  H.  W.,  VI,  31,  32^ 
61,  63 

Dresser,  J.  A.,  43,  46,  61,  62 

Dresser,  Mrs.  J.  A.,  31,  46 

Drugs,  Mrs.  Eddy  on,  131,166 

Drummond,  Henry,  26 

Dualism,  139,  143 

Dubois,  Dr.  Paul,  60,  196 

Dunmore,  Earl  of,  16 

Dyer,  Miss  Frances  J.,  235 


East  Stoughton,  69 

Eddy,  Asa  Gilbert,  80-84, 
86,  152,  167,  234 

Eddy,  Mrs.  M.  B.  G.,  5^^  Ta- 
ble of  Contents;  also.  Ba- 
ker, Glover,  and  Patterson. 

Kddy  vs.  Frye  et  al.,  case  of, 
16,  85 


Edmonton,  63 

Edwards  Church,  the,  132 

Eginhard,  192 

Eliot,  Prest.  C.  W.,  9,  129 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  107 

Ellises,  the,  33,  68 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  109,  119 

Emmanuel    Movement,    197 

248 
Encyclopcsdia  Britannica,  112 
Ephesus,  Council  of,  143 
Esdaile,  197 

Estate  of  Mrs.  Eddy,  224 
Eucharist,    the,    Mrs.    Eddy 

on,  161 
Evans,  Dr.  W.  F.,  43,  46,  202 
Eve,    and    mental    surgery, 

176 
Evil,  see  Sin. 
Evolution,  124,  125,  241 
Exegesis,  20 
Exodus,  120 


Family,  the,  and  Christian 
Science,  Ch.  VIII 

Farlow,  Alfred,  VI,  92,  100, 
111,  114,  115,  116,  117. 
122,  124,  140,  162,  171, 
176,  249;  see  also  Commit- 
tee on  Publication. 

Farnsworth,  E.  C,  135,  242, 
251 

Fehling's  test,  185 

Fevers,  173,  186 

Fluno,  Dr.,  142 

Foster-Eddy,  Dr.  85,  91,  167 

Free  Press,  the  Lebanon,  39 

French,  Dr.  Edward,  85,  232 


256 


INDEX 


Friendship,     and     Christian 

Science,  Ch.  VIII 
Frye,  C.  A.,  84,  85,  92,  235 


Gautama,  108 

Gender,  Mrs.  Eddy  on,  251 

Gladstone,  182 

Globe,  the  Boston,  85 

Glover,  G.  W.,  55,  232 

Glover,    Mrs.    Mary    B.,    40; 

see  also  Mrs.  Eddy 
Gnostics.  216 
God,     and     evolution,     123; 

Mrs.  Eddy's  conception  of, 

136,  150,  187,  215 
Goddard,    Professor    H.    H., 

178,  194 
Gordon,  Dr.  George  A.,   19, 

129 
Gould,  Helen,  184 
Greg,  W.  R.,  219 
Gregory  the  Great,  192 
Grieve,  David,  129 
Grimes,  51 


H 


Hale,    Dr.    Edward   Everett, 

246 
Hamilton,  Dr.  Allen  M'Lane, 

85,  222,  227,  232,  244 
Hamlet,  113,  209 
Hanna,  Judge,  173,  177,  178, 

224 
Hawthorne  Hall,  89 
Healing,    Christian    Science, 

Ch.  VII 
Healing,  mental,  Ch.  VII 
Hegel,  110 


Hering,  H.  S.,  92,  126 
Hernia,  182 
Hilary,  192 

Hill,  Rev.  Edgar  P.,  140 
Holland,  Canon  Scott,  112 
Holmes,  Mrs.  A.  L.,  69,  244 
Holmes,  Dr.  C.  E.,  VI,  244 
Holy  Communion,  Mrs.  Eddy 

on,  160  # 
Holy  Ghost,  see  Holy  Spirit 
Holy    Spirit,    and    Christian 

Science,  142,  206 
Huber,     Dr.    John     B.,    VI. 

177-180 
Huguenots,  193 
Human  Life,  V .,  47,  112 
Hypnotism,  98,  196,  197,  200 
Hypochondria,  198 
Hysteria,  198 


Idealism  of  Mrs.  Eddy,  20, 
138,  Ch.  V 

Imagination,  Tyndall's  scien- 
tific uses  of,  120 

Incarnation,  the,  142 

Independent,  the,  3 

India,  snake  bites  in,  223 

Infinite  Mind,  109 

Insomnia,  198 

Irving,  W.,  70 

Isaiah,  163 

Isle  of  Dreams,  the,  148 


Jacob,  well  of,  190 

James,     Professor     William, 

200,  221,  231 
Jeffersonian,  the  Bangor,  39 
Jerome,  192 


INDEX 


257 


Jesus,  2,  31,   114,   142,   153, 

155,    205-208,    216;    Mrs. 

Eddy   and,    105-107,    143; 

way  of  healing,  171,  189 
Job,  89,  128 
Johns    Hopkins    University, 

126,  198 
Johnson,  Samuel,  193 
Johnston,  W.  A.,  174 
Jordan,      President       David 

Starr,    227 
Journals    Christian     Science, 

88,  153 
Judas,  106,  107 

K 

Kant,  109,  119 

Kennedy,    Richard,    VI,   34, 

46,  56,  73-75,  137,  165 
Keyes,  Hon.  Wade,  238 
King's  Evil  and  Charles  II., 

193 


Lanier,  Sidney,  152 
Lawsuit,  see  Eddy  vs.   Frye 

et  al. 
Ledger,  the  New  York,  70 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  100 
Leprosy,  172 
Libby  Prison,  58 
Light  Brigade,  charge  of  the, 

5 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  72 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,   114,   156, 

159,  241 
Logos,     the,      Mrs.     Eddy's 

idea  of,  146 
Lord's    Prayer    in    Christian 

Science,  160 


Lotze,  109 

Lourdes,  194 

Love  and  Christian  Science, 

Ch.  VIII 
Luther,  Martin,  193 
Lynn,  Mass.,  58,  66,  72,  78, 

86,  111 

M 

Macleod,  Fiona,  148 

McClure's,  V,  36 

McComb,  Dr.  S.,  248 

McLellan,  A.,  92,  147 

McGee,  Anita  Newcomb,  184 

Magnetism,  Animal,  51,  76, 
90,  165-168,  201;  "M.  A. 
M.;"  see  Animal  Magnet- 
ism. 

Mahomet,  95 

Malaria,  185 

Man,  the  reflection  of  God, 
■187 

Manila,  181 

Manual,  the,  90,  97-100, 
151,  211,  243 

Mark  Twain,  see  S.  L. 
Clemens. 

Marriage  and  Christian  Sci- 
ence, Ch.  VIII 

Mary,  Virgin,  149,  206 

Masons,  the  Free,  55 

Massachusetts  Metaphysical 
College,  87,  92,  93 

Materialism,  136 

Matter  and  Christian  Science, 
109,  115,  186 

Mecca,  95 

Medicine,  181 

"Medicine  Man,"  the,  199 

Medina,  95 


258 


INDEX 


Mental  Medicine,  Evans's,  43 

Mesmer,  51,  91 

Mesmerism,        see        Animal 

Magnetism 
Methodists,  193 
Metaphysical  College,  Mass., 

87,  92,  93 
Milmine,     Georgine,     V,     34, 

38,  77 
Mind,  Mrs.  Eddy  on,  109 
Mind  senses,  118 
Miracles,  false,  192 
Missions,  Mrs.  Eddy  on,  223 
Mona  Lisa,  100 
Moll,  Albert,  201 
Moody,  D.  L.,  26 
Moravians,  193 
More,  P.  E.,  251 
Mormonism,  77 
"Mortal  Mind,"  166-168 
Moses,  120,  151,  172 
Mosley,  J.  R.,  125,  139 
"Mother  Mary,"  24,  151 
Motherhood  of  God,  150 
Miinsterberg,  Prof.,  67 

N 

Nancy,  Bernheim  at,  60 

Napoleon,  50,  97,  107 

National  Christian  Science 
Association,  88,  151 

"Nature,"  Emerson's  Ad- 
dress on,  119 

Neo-Platonists,  108 

Nero,  76 

Nestorianism,  143,  146 

Neurasthenia,  198 

Newell,  Bradley,  194 

New  England,  influence  of, 
51 


Newhalls,  the,  68 

New  Thought,  17,  198 

New  York,  Christian  Science 

in,  177 
Niccea,  Council  of,  143 
Nightingale,  Florence,  184 
A^^  and  Yes,  137 
Norton,  Carol,  173 


Osier,    Dr.  Wm.,     177,    185, 
198 


Palsy,  173,  185 

Pantheism,  20,  138,  Ch.  V 

Paracelsus,  199 

Paralysis,  198 

Parker   Fraternity   Building, 

87 
Parkhurst,  Bishop,  193 
Parkyn,  195 
Patterson,  C.  B.,  17 
Patterson,  Dr.  Daniel,  57,  66, 

81 
Patterson,  Mrs.  Daniel  (Mrs. 

Eddy),  32,  40,  64 
Peabody,  F.  W.,  VI.,  231 
Pharisees,  4 
Philosophy,  Christian  Science 

20,  Ch.  V 
Pickwick  Papers,  70 
Pierce,  Franklin,  51 
Plants,      Christian      Science 

healing  of,  174 
Plato,  108 
Pleasant  View,    95,    98,    99, 

124,  184,  212 


INDEX 


259 


Pleurisy,  248 

"P.  M.  Society,"  90 

Poe,  E.  A.,  167 

Poisons,  and  Christian  Sci- 
ence, 175 

Pomponazzi,  199 

Portland,  Maine,  59 

Post,  the  Boston,  36 

Poyen,  Charles,  51,  60 

Prayer,  Mrs.  Eddy  on,  155 

Presbyterians,  193 

Principle,  136,  214 

Proselyting,  6,  7,  222 

Publication,  Committee  on, 
15,  46,  47;  see  Farlow 

Puritans,  193 


Q 


Quimby,  George  A.,  VI,  71, 
228,  230 

Quimby,  P.  P.,  59,  74,  75, 
106,119,139,  143-145,165, 
193,  201,  229,  233,  Ch.  Ill 

Quimby,  Mrs.  P.  P.,  38 


Rainsford,  W.  S.,  129 

Reality,  in  Christian  Science, 
116 

Reformation,  the,  193 

Religion  of  Christian  Science, 
Ch.  VI 

Revelation,  Book  of,  148 

Rheumatism,  186 

Richelieu,  107 

Rochester  Rapping  Spiritual- 
ism, 32 

Rome,  9 


Roosevelt,  Theodore,  129 
Russells,  the,  33,  68 
Russo-Turkish  War,  182 


Sacraments,  the,  159 

St.  Anne,  193 

St.  James,  26 

St.  John,  215,  242 

St.  Luke,  208 

St.  Mark,  208 

St.  Matthew,  208 

St.  Paul,    26,    28,    145,    159, 

162,  208 
Salem  witchcraft,  80 
Sanbornton  Bridge,  53 
Sargeant,  Mrs.  Laura  E.,  92 
Satan,  Mrs.  Eddy  on,  167 
Schlatter,  194 
Schrader,  194 
Science  and  Health,  Ch.  II 
Scrofula,  193 
Senses,  soul,  118 
Sentinel,    Christian  Science, 

88,  147 
Seward,  W.  H.,  72 
Shakers,  the,  51,  52 
Siena,  Catharine  of,  194 
Sin,  in  Christian  Science,  162 
Small-pox,  172 
Smith  College,  132,  133 
Smith,  Judge  C.  P.,  174 
Snake  bites  in  India,  223 
Soul  senses,  118 
South  worth,  Mrs.  70 
Spanish-American   War,    182 
Spenser,  198 
Spinoza,  109 
Spirit  senses,  118 
Spiritualism,  32 


20O 


INDEX 


Spofford,  D.  H.,  VI,    34,  45, 

78-81,  82,  148,  152,  165 
Springfield,  Mass.,  116 
Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  72 
Stetson,  Mrs.,  177,  178 
Stone,  51 

Stoughton,  Mass.,  69,  119 
Straus,  161 

Suggestion    in   mental    heal- 
ing, 197-200 
Suicidal  tendencies,  198 
Supreme  Court,  Mass.,  103 
Surgery,  176,  182,  196,  197 
Swampscott,  Mass.,  68 


Taft,  W.  H.,  129 

Theology  of  Christian  Sci- 
ence, Ch.  VI 

Therapeutics,  Mental,  Ch. 
VII 

Thessalonians,  208 

Thibet,  132 

Tityrus,  123 

Tilton,  N.  H.,  53,  55 

Tomlinson,  Rev.  Irving  C, 
92,  223 

Town,  Dr.  F.  L.,  40 

Transcendentalists,   the,    109 

Trent,  W.  P.,  100 

Trinity,  the  Christian  Sci- 
ence, 142 

Trinity  Church,  Boston,   120 

Trommer's  test,  185 

Tuckey,  C.  Lloyd,  201 

Tumors,  185,  186 

Tyndall,  Prof.,  120 

Typhoid  fever,  diagnosis  of, 
177,  181,  193 


U 


Unity,  Mrs.  Eddy's  search 
for,  136 

"Universal  Substance,"  Spi- 
noza's, 109 

V 

Van  Rhenterghem,  195 
W 

Walcott,  Mrs.  J,  R.,  VI,  33, 
46 

Waldenses,  193 

War,  Civil,  58;  Russo-Turk- 
ish,  182,  Spanish-Amer- 
ican, 182 

War  in  Heaven,  91 

Ware,  the  Misses,  60,  61 

Websters,  the.  69 

Weissman,  125 

Welles.  Mrs.  Benjamin,  VI 

Wentworths,  the,  VI,  34,  46, 
69-72 

Wheelers,  the,  68 

White  House,  the,  9 

Wiggin,  Rev.  J.  H.,  38,  166. 
226 

Wilbur,  Sibyl,  47,  48 

Will,  the,  in  Christian  Sci- 
ence, 165 

Willis,  John  B.,  250 

Wilson,  H.  Cornell,  92 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  129 

Wisdom,  P.  P.  Ouimby  on 
the,  144 

Witchcraft,  the  modern  Sa- 
lem, 80 

Wolsey,.  Cardinal,  107 

Wood,  Henry,  17 


INDEX 


261 


Worcester,   Dr.  Elwood,    17, 
19,  249 

Wright,  Livingston,   VI,  226 


Yellow  fever,  181 


Young,    Bicknell,    116,    117, 
122,  137 


Zend-Avesta,  108 


Date  Due 


